10 Climate Tipping Points the World Needs to Avoid at All Costs

The Arctic loses about 13% of its sea ice every decade, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The region could be ice free in the summer by 2040, making the Arctic one of the most at-risk environments. The Arctic ice cover helps in maintaining Earth’s temperature as the ice reflects light and heat that the ocean would otherwise absorb, keeping the Northern Hemisphere cool, The National Snow and Ice Data Center explains. Loss of Arctic sea ice could lead to further Arctic warming, erosion of Arctic coastlines, and a disturbance of global weather patterns.

When land-based ice sheets melt into the oceans they cause sea levels to rise. Greenland is basically a gigantic ice sheet planted on the world’s largest island. According to NASA, Greenland loses 283 gigatonnes of ice per year, and the Greenland Ice Sheet holds enough water to raise the sea level by 24 feet (7.4 meters).

Global warming is having a profound effect on Siberia, the vast and sparsely-populated region of Russia that stores immense amounts of methane in its porous frozen limestone. The region has confronted warmer winter temperatures and seasonal summertime fires. Thawing permafrost in the region has resulted methane, a potent greenhouse gas, being unlocked from the soil at such a rapid pace that scientist call it a “methane time bomb” that is accelerating global warming.

Boreal forests span the frigid subpolar regions of the world, including vast parts of Canada, and like all forests they play an important role in absorbing carbon dioxide. Annual fires in western Canada are disrupting this ecosystem and unlocking its carbon into the atmosphere. In May and June 2019, observers counted more than 17,000 fires in the province of Alberta, the highest number in 20 years.

Methane, a hydrocarbon byproduct of the microbial decay of organic matter, is a potent greenhouse gas. It is locked in the frozen soils of Siberia and trapped beneath the sea floor within the molecular lattice of ice, a solid known as a methane clathrate. As the oceans warm, this methane is released from its icy cells.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a complex network of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that delivers warmer tropical waters north and cooler waters south in a giant conveyor belt between the Americas and Europe/Africa. Global warming and changes in seawater salinity is weakening the AMOC. This slowdown is one reason why areas of the North Atlantic can experience colder winters as the AMOC weakens.

As the Atlantic Ocean is becoming profoundly changed by global warming, on the other side of the world the situation may be worse. Human-caused climate change threatens to re-awaken a geologically ancient weather pattern that makes monsoons stronger and droughts more frequent as Indian Ocean temperatures become more volatile. This would disproportionately affect the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.

Far away from the sub-Arctic environmentally important boreal forests of Canada, Alaska, and Russia is the Amazon Basin that covers a massive area across eight South American countries. This region has played an outsize role in storing the world’s carbon dioxide into its ecosystem. But deforestation and climate change are increasing droughts and dry seasons. As rainforest is turned into savannah by these forces, with devastating effects to its biodiversity in a phenomenon known as “dieback,” more carbon is being released while the Amazon Basin’s ability to absorb carbon is greatly diminished.

The bleaching of Australia’s vast coral reef system along its eastern coast is caused by global warming. Coral reefs, which are often referred to as “rainforests of the sea” are among the most vulnerable to climate change and changes in water acidity. The world’s oceans have been absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide, which increases the water acidity. Reefs support local tourism and the commercial fishing industry. They also protect coastlines from flooding during extreme storms.

Though NASA says Greenland loses almost twice as much ice than the Antarctic, the warming of both polar environments — one in the north and the other in the south — is contributing massively to sea level rises. Ice shelves are enormous ice sheets that hug the land, and the Antarctic has many of them. In March, an ice shelf the size of New York City collapsed off East Antarctica. It was the first time humans had observed this phenomenon on the continent.