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To start things off, this article uses way too many analogies. In fact, half of the introduction section was just analogies, which may help some understand the topic but seems to be more of a content filler. We begin to see some quality writing in the definition section. The authors define the term "tipping point" using the IPCC AR5 report, which is a very reliable source. They also provided an alternative definition, which I think just confuses the reader since it just dances around the first definition from the IPCC AR5. There are some grammar and spelling mistakes, such as the capitalization of the word "ocean." There is a lack of citations in some parts of the article, which needs to either be cited or be removed. PhatWabbit ( talk) 18:13, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
This article misunderstands the meaning of tipping point, at least as its used by Hansen or Lenton. A tipping point is *not* when we get to a CO2 level that causes more CO2 to be emitted. Its something like when we get to a T change from CO2 that we are committed to melting Greenland. In fact the concept is very hard to define exactly (I would argue that no-one has done so: it remains a vague concept more useful for generating scary headlines than anythng else). See-also [1]. Or [2] William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Early energy balance climate models revealed a “small ice
cap instability” at the pole (Budyko, 1969; North, 1984), which implied that, once sea ice retreated to a critical latitude, all remaining ice would be lost rapidly without additional forcing. This instability disappears in climate models with a seasonal cycle of radiation and realistic dynamical energy transports, but a vestige remains: the snow/ice albedo feedback makes sea ice cover in summer and fall sensitive to moderate increase of climate forcings. The Arctic was ice-free in the warm season during the Middle Pliocene when global temperature was only 2-3�C warmer than today (Crowley, 1996; Dowsett et al., 1996). Satellite data indicate a rapid decline, �9%/decade, in perennial Arctic sea ice since 1978 (Comiso, 2002), raising the question of whether the Arctic has reached a “tipping point” leading inevitably to loss of all warm season sea ice (Lindsay and Zhang, 2005). Indeed, some experts suggest that “. . . there seem to be few, if any, processes or feedbacks that are capable of altering the trajectory toward this ‘super interglacial’ state” free of summer sea ice (Overpeck et al.,
2005).
from "Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study" Hansen, et al. -- DHeyward ( talk) 22:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it is appropriate to say somewhere on the page that advocacy groups have sprung up around the concept of a tipping point, and that a goal of 350ppm has been proposed and embraced by people like Hansen. There seems to be no cogent reason to exclude the fact that the concept of a tipping point has had a social response. ► RATEL ◄ 02:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Good point! Agreed. 209.255.78.138 ( talk) 18:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Is it REALLY "spam" if it is the Most Important number now? 99.37.84.188 ( talk) 21:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
What is "spam"? 99.54.139.30 ( talk) 03:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Why isn't this linked to Category:Climate change, as tipping can go either way ... ? 99.155.145.157 ( talk) 22:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Addition tipping point "How it all ends" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg ? 209.255.78.138 ( talk) 20:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
If of interest, see Greg Craven (teacher). 209.255.78.138 ( talk) 18:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Re [6]. Kerr is a journo. His opinion doesn't belong that prominently William M. Connolley ( talk) 17:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
It has been a while since I read the U.N. Millenium report (2006). 'Global Warming' is only one of the critical stressors on the biosphere.
Yet, [biosphere] does not even suggest that the real thing might be at a 'tipping point' of disintegration. Is this because it can not be proven or calculated until it actually disintegrates? Is there perhaps another place on the web that better represents this critical issue for mankind?
Google search of biospheric tipping point yields: http://www.johncairns.net/Papers/Threats%20to%20the%20Biosphere.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kapler42 ( talk • contribs) 18:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
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99.181.156.221 ( talk) 01:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
The initial statement that a tipping point is the change form one stable state to another seems to be contradicted by a later point that it may be passed without any obvious consequences. If the two states are indistinguishable then in what sense are they distinct? I think some clarification of what exactly it is in the climate that has "tipped" is required. In the example of the Greenland icesheets explicitly stating the parameter of concern would help, is it the thickness, the temperature, the speed or something else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.234.173 ( talk) 12:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
What is the Meridian Programme? 97.87.29.188 ( talk) 19:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Seems to me that feedback is the thing that makes the system tip and should be mentioned. In the wine glass analogy a small change (less than the tipping point) results in negative feedback which returns the system to the initial state, whereas a slightly larger change that passes the tipping point results in positive feedback that inevitably sends the system off into the new state. (this gels with Hansen's comments further down that we have already passed the tipping point for climate change == the climate sensitivity is positive)
In short I'm suggesting the definition of the tipping point is when the sign of the feedback changes from negative to positive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.234.173 ( talk) 05:33, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
made a minor change to sp of celcius. also worth noting that it shoudl be capitalized. -- Fraulein451 ( talk) 08:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Is passing a tipping point always irreversible? If it is always irreversible it should be beefed up to say so. If not then it isn't a defining feature and probably doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the intro. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.117.60 ( talk) 12:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Is the sentence "At some level of temperature rise, the melt of the entire ice sheet will become inevitable, even though complete melting may not occur for millennia." meant to be an established fact or just a possible scenario? If it's a fact then a citation is warranted otherwise something to indicate it's a speculator such as changing "will" to "might" is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.117.60 ( talk) 10:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
This ref was removed: Gail Whiteman reporting that methane release can happen 'at any moment' Perhaps another article about the same report can be integrated KVDP ( talk) 16:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Elsewhere on the internet the casual researcher will find plenty of good text and graphical explanations of tipping points. Google text and images.
This article is pretty old. Needs updating. Rpauli ( talk) 23:40, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
I fear the name of the article does not match its content. This article is about tipping elements, but it is titeled "tipping point". You can see this when you look at what Lenton et all really highlights in his cited publication: These are tipping elements, not tipping points. The tipping point exists, too: It is the point at which the tipping element flipps. -- Hg6996 ( talk) 19:06, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
this communication science article tracks the uses of climate tipping point terminology. its fairly pedantic but there is useful info in it. the author suggest a distinction between scientific uses and social uses, which have overlapping but different meanings, and the history of its use, a section that is sorely missing in this article.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_4800/russill_2009.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by KyotoGrrl ( talk • contribs) 05:56, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
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While (after?) we're merging, shall we change the title to Tipping point in climate, tipping points in climatology, climate tipping points or tipping points in the climate system? The current definition implies that tipping points are defined differently in sociology, physics and climate, which is mostly untrue. Femkemilene ( talk) 10:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Useful RS
NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 23:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I love the rewrite, but the most important section of the old tipping point article is removed: all the tipping points that don't relate to global temperature! Lenton's overview of tipping points from 2008 is somewhat outdated, but still mostly correct and I think it's inclusion, with updated research, is vital for this article.
The article now falsely implies that melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, disruption to Indian and West African monsoon seasons, and disruption of thermohaline circulation are consequences of some temperature tipping point, instead of having tippnig points in their own right. I think in terms of balance about 1/3 of the article should be about GMST tipping points, and the other 2/3 about other tipping points in climate.
Importantly, the definition in the lede is now at odds with the two references we have for what a tipping point is in the definition section. Femkemilene ( talk) 21:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
The notion of thresholds has become a prominent ecological and political concern (Knapp, A.K. et al., 2008; Lenton et al., 2008; Leadley et al., 2010). To avoid policy confusion, three types of threshold need to be distinguished. The first reflects a human preference that the ecosystem stays within certain bounds, such as above a certain forest cover. These can be, by definition, negotiated. The second type reflects fundamental biological or physical properties, for instance the temperature at which frozen soils thaw (see Box 4-4) or the physiological tolerance limits of species. The third type is caused by system dynamics: the point at which the net effect of all the positive and negative feedback loops regulating the system is sufficiently large and positive that a small transgression becomes sufficiently amplified to lead to a change in ecosystem state called a regime shift (Lenton et al., 2008). The new state exhibits different dynamics, mean composition, sensitivity to environmental drivers, and flows of ecosystem services relative to the prior state. This type of threshold is called a “tipping point” (defined in the Glossary as a level of change in system properties beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly, and persists in its new state even if the drivers of the change are abated ) and is important in the context of climate change because its onset may be abrupt, hard to predict precisely, and effectively irreversible (Scheffer et al., 2009; Leadley et al., 2010; Barnosky et al., 2012; Brook et al., 2013; Hughes et al., 2013). Many examples of tipping points have now been identified (Scheffer, 2009). Regional-scale ecosystem tipping points have not occurred in the recent past, but there is good evidence for tipping points in the distant past (Section 4.2.3) and there is concern that they could occur in the near future.
— IPCC AR5 WG2 Full report section 4.2 page 278
I will follow the lead of the IPCC 1.5 report and make a distinction between tipping points that effect the global climate and regional tipping points. Will add a bit more information about the overall consequences for these global tipping points. Femkemilene ( talk) 11:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
I will continue the editing later this weekend with more focus on the global effects and better sourcing. Of course, feel free to expand! Femkemilene ( talk) 12:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Just wanted to thank @ Femkemilene: and @ Efbrazil: for constructive collaboration on the recent merge discussions. Even if we end up learning enough to not merge, we're still cleaning, sorting, and focussig so the results either way will be vastly improved. Keep it up! NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 11:58, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Just FYI, in response to a recent edit summary, text in the lead is supposed to summarize cited text in the body of the article. Citations are not mandatory in the lead. WP:LEADCITE. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 20:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Isn't the retreat of glaciers a tipping point too (trough the albedo effect) ? Also, aren't coral reefs (again which are in decline) a tipping point as their disappearance will probably impact the flow of sea currents. If so, perhaps include them in article. Genetics4good ( talk) 11:17, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Shouldn't the page also include a list of actions that can be taken (and are often already being taken btw, at least to some degree) to prevent crossing over individual tipping points ? In some cases, such actions are already described on the pages of the individual tipping points, but a quick list here would avoid needing to look up each one individually. For instance, I'm thinking of:
I think that by adding something like this, the article would be a bit less negative in tone, besides simply also being useful information for the page. Genetics4good ( talk) 14:58, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
Genetics4good ( talk) 08:04, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
There seems to be very little unique material at Abrupt climate change, and that article should probably be merged here as well. Your thoughts? NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 13:11, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Concretely, shall we merge the content of general, effects, first bit of feedbacks into this article. The part about past abrupt change cannot be integrated easily, but should be integrated with help of literature looking at these events throught the lens of tipping points and irreversible change. I'm a bit worried that not all of the abrupt past changes in climate can be put together in an overarching manner.. Are there any articles where that info might be suited for? The article is very weak on climate change adaptation, but maybe we can add a sentence in that article. (the article climate change adaptation is also very weak). I don't think the article's content should go to sensitivity, nor climate change feedback. Femke Nijsse ( talk) 08:48, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
I do not think climate change speed is a well-defined topic. A quick Google search does not come up with any definition and the search results are quite varied in scope. Ideally, Wikipedia articles should have a well-defined scope about which for instance overview literature exists. If we define our own scopes, we get a lot of overlap with other topics that have a well-defined scope.
It is quite difficult to determine whether abrupt climate change in the past was due to tipping points. There is some literature that covers specifically abrupt climate change from a paleo-perspective ( https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change, https://www.nap.edu/read/10136/chapter/4#23). If we keep a separate article, I think we can limit its scope to this particular topic. (I love well-defined shorter articles). Femke Nijsse ( talk) 09:52, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@ Femkemilene, NewsAndEventsGuy, and Efbrazil: There seems to have been an agreement in principle about a year ago; just pinging those with subject expertise, involved in the discussion, would might be able to complete the merge. Klbrain ( talk) 08:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
This is all dumb. Abrupt Climate Change is a real thing. Tipping points is gunk William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Runaway climate change is more developed, and both cover the same basic concept... once there are enough feedbacks, the climate system takes off looking for a new equilibrium. We should talk about that in one place, not two. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 19:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Why did we merge the runaway climate change article into this article? Please change this. "Tipping points in the climate system"? That's not searchable.
Please restore the original runaway climate change article. Thanks. Nashhinton ( talk) 04:47, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
I think we need a new category/heading here- Runaway Carbon Dioxide. This is unrelated to climate and weather. The idea, framed out by Bill McKibben in "Falter"(2019) is this: Human CO2 emissions ~37GT/year are causing atmospheric CO2 (~414ppm) to rise at an increasing rate. This is reacting with seawater to form carbonic acid, causing ocean pH to fall (~30% since 1751). Eventually, (possibly CO2 >=1000ppm), many current ocean species (such as phytoplankton) will disappear, being replaced with disaster taxa (i.e. Chlorobiaceae). These species emit hydrogen sulfide, which harms the ozone layer. This leads to a breakdown also in plants on land. Essentially repeating the conditions of the end-Permian mass extinction. Norse1933 ( talk) 11:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
The article has a section on large scale tipping elements and regional tipping elements. This seems to me to be an arbitrary distinction. The reality is that over ten years ago, [1] scientists identified nine (main) possible tipping points. [2] These need to be documented in the article. I have added headings. Please feel free to add material to each of them. Yaklib ( talk) 20:53, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
References
@NewsandEventsGuy: Carbon brief isn't a blog. Has editorial board and a reputation for fact-checking. It's significantly more reliable than for instance The Guardian. FemkeMilene ( talk) 20:04, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm not pissed, just informal/direct wording in a discussion with an old friend. I'll contact them. :) FemkeMilene ( talk) 22:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
@ Yaklib: I moved your comment here from user talk, so its all in one place per the WP:TPG.... NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 11:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC) (@NAEG), You removed [ information] because it is on Carbon Brief - claiming that although you are a regular reader, it is a blog, of dubious neutral RS value for WP purposes. The particular article which is the source of the information is written by Dr Christina Schaedel, a research associate at the Ecosystem Dynamics Research Lab at Northern Arizona University. I'm inclined to think that would make her a reliable source. I hope you don't mind if I revert your edit. Yaklib ( talk) 10:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm adding this comment here instead of at Talk:Carbon Brief so we have a centralized discussion, as recommended by the WP:TPG.
Some years ago we debated CB as an RS at the RS noticeboard in this archived thread. At the time we tweaked the corresponding article about CB using their own words talking about themselves, per WP:ABOUTSELF. Today Femkemilene complained that their own description about themself was "too close to the mission statement" even though our ABOUTSELF policy explicallows such useage. F changed that text to explicitly describe the work of CB as "journalism", which is Femke's opinion in this contested discussion. That's getting kinda close to POINTY or GAMING, Femke. You're not using the available sourcing to establish CB as an RS, you're editing to advocate for that outcome. That's thin arctic ice, one might say. Patience with your outreach effort would be wiser IMO.
That said, I'm going to delay a decision on reverting that change for the time being. Instead, I just wanted to fully document my research and thinking. Is Carbon Brief "journalism"? Or a self-published group blog by an NGO? For our analysis please compare to Forbes. Both websites have editorial boards. Over at Forbes, the Forbes legalese titled "Terms" explicitly denies editorial control or ownership of guest contributions. Carbon Brief lacks any explanation about editorial control and responsibility for content. But that doesn't help us today. So the fact is, we might believe this or that, but we just don't know. We do know the site is funded by the NGO described in our article, but we don't know how independent the editorial team is from what is apparently a single source of funding. We also can't tell if the editorial team has control and accepts responsibility for guest submitted content. So right now today it seems like wiki policy compels us to view it as a WP:SELFPUBLISHED source, at least until CB provides additional info. It's my understanding that Femkemilene is going to contact the CB team to inform them of this discussion, and suggest they release a TERMS statement so not just Wikipedia but the whole world will have a more clear understanding of the nature of CB's work. Which will help not just us, but CB too.
But today.... this isn't necessarily a deal breaker to using CB as a source right now, because there are two exceptions that allow us to use selfpub sources. The first is when they talk WP:ABOUTSELF. The other is when the author meets the expert exception in the policy (see section WP:SELFPUBLISH). The expert exception lists criteria to apply on a case by case base for each desired citation, and if that seems like a lot of work its probably because it is. However, the policy also says Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources. and in footnotes gives examples of institutions that advise citing the original sources underlying the selfpublished work instead.
So is CB "journalism"? Maybe... they are getting awards with that word in the title of the award. But when the editorial board does not tell us how they operate, I'm not sure we should rely on the characterizations of their work by third parties. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 12:19, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I have read quite a lot of RSN on natural and social science topics, and my experience is that sources with less tendency to correct mistakes and find balance in experts are deemed (mostly) reliable. Let's wait a week. I've used this source in FAs without getting any pushback on it not meeting the HQRS standards, which go beyong RS. FemkeMilene ( talk) 12:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
In the first paragraph of the lede, the glacial cycles are given as an example of a tipping point. I'm not sure how much threshold behaviour is present there (probably a bit in the ice sheet response), but it's certainly not a canonical example of tipping. The lede focusses on the external forcing, rather than the internal threshold behaviour. Maybe just taking one of the ice sheet tipping points, or the Amazon one would serve our audience better. FemkeMilene ( talk) 09:36, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
The cited source doesn't use the words 'tipping', 'critical' or 'threshold'. I've boldly removed it altogether. FemkeMilene ( talk) 09:59, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Hello Yaklib,
I see you and others have made lots of great improvements to this very important article. Suggest you nominate it as a good article. I know there is a fair bit more to do but as it generally takes weeks before anyone picks up a nomination for review I think you have already got it past the point where it would be "quick failed" and can continue working on it while you wait for review. Keep up the good work. Chidgk1 ( talk) 07:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Yaklib, Positive climate future is unfortunately not a reliable source. First of all, it is a blog, which is typically considered self-published if it isn't part of an established media outlet. Secondly, I see no evidence of professional staff or an editorial board to do fact checking. Thirdly, the fact you are citing from them is a common myth: see this national geographic article which offers a great explanation. FemkeMilene ( talk) 06:55, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Currently this article quotes the IPCC definition of a tipping point as:
"A level of change in system properties beyond which a system reorganises, often in a non-linear manner, and does not return to the initial state even if the drivers of the change are abated. For the climate system, the term refers to a critical threshold at which global or regional climate changes from one stable state to another stable state. Tipping points are also used when referring to impact: the term can imply that an impact tipping point is (about to be) reached in a natural or human system."
I am not entirely comfortable with the notion that climate change will lead to a new stable state. If the world remains hotter and sea levels are ten metres higher than they are now, and that lasts for thousands of years, I suppose that could be called stable. But it will take millennia for all this to happen. There is nothing stable about the process of change currently taking place. The IPCC definition appears to suggest it happens overnight. I think the way it is worded is quite misleading. What does anyone else think? Yaklib ( talk) 06:02, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
One of the important improvement needed to the article is the switch from mainly having primary sources (single studies, like the highly controversial one about cloud cover) to mainly secondary sourcing (review papers / review reports, like the IPCC or the NCA). This is needed to make sure we don't put undue weight on the most scary sourding paper, and make sure the caveats are all in place (for the cloud, the extrapolation of a small area the researchers studied to the globe). See WP:PSTS. FemkeMilene ( talk) 06:49, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
The new IPCC report is out, providing us with an amazing synthesis of published research. For loads of Wikipedia pages, we can increase the certainty with which we can describe impacts, probably including this one. However, the first discrepancy I noticed between our article and the IPCC is the description of ice loss in the Arctic, which is linear with tempearture according to the Technical Summary, page 43. I don't think the cited sources supported that there was a tipping point for this impact, so I've removed that paragraph. FemkeMilene ( talk) 18:49, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
In the technical summary there is "Box TS.9: Irreversibility, Tipping Points and Abrupt Changes" so I want to ask everyone whether you think this article should include all three of these things? And if so whether the article should be renamed? Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:59, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
The second sentence of the article defines the scope. Before it defined three domains in which tipping could take place: physical, ecosystem and humans. The article is only talking about tipping points in the former two, so I agree with @ Yaklib that we can change the scope. We do talk a lot about tipping in ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest and boreal forest). Shall we change the second sentence to "Tipping points have been identified in the physical climate system and in the biosphere (or in ecosystems), and can have severe impacts on humans." Alternatively, we could include some social tipping points, such as the tipping away from coal use, but I'm not that keen on that. FemkeMilene ( talk) 10:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
This section is currently waffle with no specific information. If we intend to keep this section going, it needs to include up to date information about what is happening in different tipping elements which raise alarm. See The amount of Greenland ice that melted on Tuesday could cover Florida in 2 inches of water. This is an example of an early warning signal. There are hundreds of other examples available. Yaklib ( talk) 00:17, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
I have added some early warning signals for Greenland. However, it might be best to include early warning signals for each of the nine tipping elements as a sub heading under the main heading of each one. Yaklib ( talk) 01:06, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
It is meant to be scientifically accurate. The term EWS/EWI have a very specific meaning and therefore shouldn't be used to refer to something else. Some of what is now under those headings looks like synthesis anyway, with many of the sources not mentioning the term tipping. It's your interpretation that these numbers are relevant to tipping. While it isn't quite untrue, we are not meant to imply a relationship when the sources do not. FemkeMilene ( talk) 20:05, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm very aware of the need of a collaboration between lay people and experts, and I'm always really grateful for feedback when I'm not clear enough, like you gave before. Please bear with me, real life is crazy. FemkeMilene ( talk) 20:08, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm sorry to hear that. Which was the offending edit? I hope it's not the style edits, which can be very peculiar to an encyclopedia and it may seem weird that I changed some sentences rather drastically. I'm always aiming to discuss and find a compromise. FemkeMilene ( talk) 21:32, 1 August 2021 (UTC) I've made a new heading of 'mathematical theory', signposting that readers who aren't interested in maths can easily skip the theory of early warning signals. I'll go over the entire subsection again to make it easier later. FemkeMilene ( talk) 22:09, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
Yaklib As you have improved this very important article so much already I hope you will consider continuing here some time in the future. Maybe it would be best for us all to take a break from this article for a few weeks. Because I guess after AR6 WG1 comes out it will take a little while for the press to digest it. I hope the professional writers will then explain AR6 views on EWS in a way that I will find easy to understand (if anyone wants to add equations for grad students I think they should be in a footnote so as not to put off weak math people like me). Also I am guessing that there might be more than one theory about EWS - but presumably AR6 will indicate the consensus if there is one. For sure after that I will then nominate this for "good article" if nobody else does, because the subject is so important. Anyway whether or not you return thanks for your hard work - without you I would have been put off by the poor original state of the article and left it as too much work. Chidgk1 ( talk) 13:31, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
Co-nomination means I endorse the article, of course I would only do this if I think the article is accurate. I'm happy for others to nominate, and as an involved editor, I'm not going to be the one reviewing the nomination anyway.
Lenton is not using the term EWS, because he uses different evidence of nearing a tipping point than EWS (namely modelling evidence). I'm keen on including more evidence that tipping points are close to their modelled threshold, as long as we don't call it EWS. There is no need to use the word 'Early warning signal' for this, there are plenty of words we can use that do not have a conflicting scientific meaning.
May I point you towards WP:Focus on content, rather than focussing on a person. If you have comments about my behaviour, I'm happy to further discuss them on my user talk page. FemkeMilene ( talk) 09:13, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
The Wang study makes the connection, not Monbiot. The abstract says "Our results suggest that if environmental regimes are sufficiently affected by large external impacts that flickering is induced." In the body of the article it says: "In systems in which exogenous drivers result in high levels of disturbance, flickering can be a more likely source of early warning signals than critical slowing down."
Extreme weather events are specific examples of 'large external impacts' and 'exogenous drivers resulting in high levels of disturbance'. Yaklib ( talk) 20:30, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Two points can be made about information from the Fischer study. 1) There are a few sentences in this WP article that do not contain the words 'tipping point'. That does not make those sentences irrelevant. They are there to add context and expand on information in other sentences. 2) The sentence you claim is irrelevant is about the frequency of extreme weather events - ie its about 'flickering' - which is an early warning signal. So its totally relevant. Yaklib ( talk) 09:25, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Y seems very keen on this text [7], sourced to CNN [8]. But CNN is clueless about climate change and the IPCC; it isn't clear who made up their text for them. But it isn't in the report, as you may verify for yourself by opening the report (SPM) and using ctrl-F William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:27, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
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To start things off, this article uses way too many analogies. In fact, half of the introduction section was just analogies, which may help some understand the topic but seems to be more of a content filler. We begin to see some quality writing in the definition section. The authors define the term "tipping point" using the IPCC AR5 report, which is a very reliable source. They also provided an alternative definition, which I think just confuses the reader since it just dances around the first definition from the IPCC AR5. There are some grammar and spelling mistakes, such as the capitalization of the word "ocean." There is a lack of citations in some parts of the article, which needs to either be cited or be removed. PhatWabbit ( talk) 18:13, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
This article misunderstands the meaning of tipping point, at least as its used by Hansen or Lenton. A tipping point is *not* when we get to a CO2 level that causes more CO2 to be emitted. Its something like when we get to a T change from CO2 that we are committed to melting Greenland. In fact the concept is very hard to define exactly (I would argue that no-one has done so: it remains a vague concept more useful for generating scary headlines than anythng else). See-also [1]. Or [2] William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Early energy balance climate models revealed a “small ice
cap instability” at the pole (Budyko, 1969; North, 1984), which implied that, once sea ice retreated to a critical latitude, all remaining ice would be lost rapidly without additional forcing. This instability disappears in climate models with a seasonal cycle of radiation and realistic dynamical energy transports, but a vestige remains: the snow/ice albedo feedback makes sea ice cover in summer and fall sensitive to moderate increase of climate forcings. The Arctic was ice-free in the warm season during the Middle Pliocene when global temperature was only 2-3�C warmer than today (Crowley, 1996; Dowsett et al., 1996). Satellite data indicate a rapid decline, �9%/decade, in perennial Arctic sea ice since 1978 (Comiso, 2002), raising the question of whether the Arctic has reached a “tipping point” leading inevitably to loss of all warm season sea ice (Lindsay and Zhang, 2005). Indeed, some experts suggest that “. . . there seem to be few, if any, processes or feedbacks that are capable of altering the trajectory toward this ‘super interglacial’ state” free of summer sea ice (Overpeck et al.,
2005).
from "Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study" Hansen, et al. -- DHeyward ( talk) 22:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it is appropriate to say somewhere on the page that advocacy groups have sprung up around the concept of a tipping point, and that a goal of 350ppm has been proposed and embraced by people like Hansen. There seems to be no cogent reason to exclude the fact that the concept of a tipping point has had a social response. ► RATEL ◄ 02:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Good point! Agreed. 209.255.78.138 ( talk) 18:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Is it REALLY "spam" if it is the Most Important number now? 99.37.84.188 ( talk) 21:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
What is "spam"? 99.54.139.30 ( talk) 03:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Why isn't this linked to Category:Climate change, as tipping can go either way ... ? 99.155.145.157 ( talk) 22:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Addition tipping point "How it all ends" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg ? 209.255.78.138 ( talk) 20:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
If of interest, see Greg Craven (teacher). 209.255.78.138 ( talk) 18:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Re [6]. Kerr is a journo. His opinion doesn't belong that prominently William M. Connolley ( talk) 17:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
It has been a while since I read the U.N. Millenium report (2006). 'Global Warming' is only one of the critical stressors on the biosphere.
Yet, [biosphere] does not even suggest that the real thing might be at a 'tipping point' of disintegration. Is this because it can not be proven or calculated until it actually disintegrates? Is there perhaps another place on the web that better represents this critical issue for mankind?
Google search of biospheric tipping point yields: http://www.johncairns.net/Papers/Threats%20to%20the%20Biosphere.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kapler42 ( talk • contribs) 18:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
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99.181.156.221 ( talk) 01:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
The initial statement that a tipping point is the change form one stable state to another seems to be contradicted by a later point that it may be passed without any obvious consequences. If the two states are indistinguishable then in what sense are they distinct? I think some clarification of what exactly it is in the climate that has "tipped" is required. In the example of the Greenland icesheets explicitly stating the parameter of concern would help, is it the thickness, the temperature, the speed or something else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.234.173 ( talk) 12:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
What is the Meridian Programme? 97.87.29.188 ( talk) 19:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Seems to me that feedback is the thing that makes the system tip and should be mentioned. In the wine glass analogy a small change (less than the tipping point) results in negative feedback which returns the system to the initial state, whereas a slightly larger change that passes the tipping point results in positive feedback that inevitably sends the system off into the new state. (this gels with Hansen's comments further down that we have already passed the tipping point for climate change == the climate sensitivity is positive)
In short I'm suggesting the definition of the tipping point is when the sign of the feedback changes from negative to positive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.234.173 ( talk) 05:33, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
made a minor change to sp of celcius. also worth noting that it shoudl be capitalized. -- Fraulein451 ( talk) 08:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Is passing a tipping point always irreversible? If it is always irreversible it should be beefed up to say so. If not then it isn't a defining feature and probably doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the intro. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.117.60 ( talk) 12:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Is the sentence "At some level of temperature rise, the melt of the entire ice sheet will become inevitable, even though complete melting may not occur for millennia." meant to be an established fact or just a possible scenario? If it's a fact then a citation is warranted otherwise something to indicate it's a speculator such as changing "will" to "might" is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.117.60 ( talk) 10:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
This ref was removed: Gail Whiteman reporting that methane release can happen 'at any moment' Perhaps another article about the same report can be integrated KVDP ( talk) 16:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Elsewhere on the internet the casual researcher will find plenty of good text and graphical explanations of tipping points. Google text and images.
This article is pretty old. Needs updating. Rpauli ( talk) 23:40, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
I fear the name of the article does not match its content. This article is about tipping elements, but it is titeled "tipping point". You can see this when you look at what Lenton et all really highlights in his cited publication: These are tipping elements, not tipping points. The tipping point exists, too: It is the point at which the tipping element flipps. -- Hg6996 ( talk) 19:06, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
this communication science article tracks the uses of climate tipping point terminology. its fairly pedantic but there is useful info in it. the author suggest a distinction between scientific uses and social uses, which have overlapping but different meanings, and the history of its use, a section that is sorely missing in this article.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_4800/russill_2009.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by KyotoGrrl ( talk • contribs) 05:56, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
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While (after?) we're merging, shall we change the title to Tipping point in climate, tipping points in climatology, climate tipping points or tipping points in the climate system? The current definition implies that tipping points are defined differently in sociology, physics and climate, which is mostly untrue. Femkemilene ( talk) 10:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Useful RS
NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 23:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I love the rewrite, but the most important section of the old tipping point article is removed: all the tipping points that don't relate to global temperature! Lenton's overview of tipping points from 2008 is somewhat outdated, but still mostly correct and I think it's inclusion, with updated research, is vital for this article.
The article now falsely implies that melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, disruption to Indian and West African monsoon seasons, and disruption of thermohaline circulation are consequences of some temperature tipping point, instead of having tippnig points in their own right. I think in terms of balance about 1/3 of the article should be about GMST tipping points, and the other 2/3 about other tipping points in climate.
Importantly, the definition in the lede is now at odds with the two references we have for what a tipping point is in the definition section. Femkemilene ( talk) 21:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
The notion of thresholds has become a prominent ecological and political concern (Knapp, A.K. et al., 2008; Lenton et al., 2008; Leadley et al., 2010). To avoid policy confusion, three types of threshold need to be distinguished. The first reflects a human preference that the ecosystem stays within certain bounds, such as above a certain forest cover. These can be, by definition, negotiated. The second type reflects fundamental biological or physical properties, for instance the temperature at which frozen soils thaw (see Box 4-4) or the physiological tolerance limits of species. The third type is caused by system dynamics: the point at which the net effect of all the positive and negative feedback loops regulating the system is sufficiently large and positive that a small transgression becomes sufficiently amplified to lead to a change in ecosystem state called a regime shift (Lenton et al., 2008). The new state exhibits different dynamics, mean composition, sensitivity to environmental drivers, and flows of ecosystem services relative to the prior state. This type of threshold is called a “tipping point” (defined in the Glossary as a level of change in system properties beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly, and persists in its new state even if the drivers of the change are abated ) and is important in the context of climate change because its onset may be abrupt, hard to predict precisely, and effectively irreversible (Scheffer et al., 2009; Leadley et al., 2010; Barnosky et al., 2012; Brook et al., 2013; Hughes et al., 2013). Many examples of tipping points have now been identified (Scheffer, 2009). Regional-scale ecosystem tipping points have not occurred in the recent past, but there is good evidence for tipping points in the distant past (Section 4.2.3) and there is concern that they could occur in the near future.
— IPCC AR5 WG2 Full report section 4.2 page 278
I will follow the lead of the IPCC 1.5 report and make a distinction between tipping points that effect the global climate and regional tipping points. Will add a bit more information about the overall consequences for these global tipping points. Femkemilene ( talk) 11:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
I will continue the editing later this weekend with more focus on the global effects and better sourcing. Of course, feel free to expand! Femkemilene ( talk) 12:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Just wanted to thank @ Femkemilene: and @ Efbrazil: for constructive collaboration on the recent merge discussions. Even if we end up learning enough to not merge, we're still cleaning, sorting, and focussig so the results either way will be vastly improved. Keep it up! NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 11:58, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Just FYI, in response to a recent edit summary, text in the lead is supposed to summarize cited text in the body of the article. Citations are not mandatory in the lead. WP:LEADCITE. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 20:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Isn't the retreat of glaciers a tipping point too (trough the albedo effect) ? Also, aren't coral reefs (again which are in decline) a tipping point as their disappearance will probably impact the flow of sea currents. If so, perhaps include them in article. Genetics4good ( talk) 11:17, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Shouldn't the page also include a list of actions that can be taken (and are often already being taken btw, at least to some degree) to prevent crossing over individual tipping points ? In some cases, such actions are already described on the pages of the individual tipping points, but a quick list here would avoid needing to look up each one individually. For instance, I'm thinking of:
I think that by adding something like this, the article would be a bit less negative in tone, besides simply also being useful information for the page. Genetics4good ( talk) 14:58, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
Genetics4good ( talk) 08:04, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
There seems to be very little unique material at Abrupt climate change, and that article should probably be merged here as well. Your thoughts? NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 13:11, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Concretely, shall we merge the content of general, effects, first bit of feedbacks into this article. The part about past abrupt change cannot be integrated easily, but should be integrated with help of literature looking at these events throught the lens of tipping points and irreversible change. I'm a bit worried that not all of the abrupt past changes in climate can be put together in an overarching manner.. Are there any articles where that info might be suited for? The article is very weak on climate change adaptation, but maybe we can add a sentence in that article. (the article climate change adaptation is also very weak). I don't think the article's content should go to sensitivity, nor climate change feedback. Femke Nijsse ( talk) 08:48, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
I do not think climate change speed is a well-defined topic. A quick Google search does not come up with any definition and the search results are quite varied in scope. Ideally, Wikipedia articles should have a well-defined scope about which for instance overview literature exists. If we define our own scopes, we get a lot of overlap with other topics that have a well-defined scope.
It is quite difficult to determine whether abrupt climate change in the past was due to tipping points. There is some literature that covers specifically abrupt climate change from a paleo-perspective ( https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change, https://www.nap.edu/read/10136/chapter/4#23). If we keep a separate article, I think we can limit its scope to this particular topic. (I love well-defined shorter articles). Femke Nijsse ( talk) 09:52, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@ Femkemilene, NewsAndEventsGuy, and Efbrazil: There seems to have been an agreement in principle about a year ago; just pinging those with subject expertise, involved in the discussion, would might be able to complete the merge. Klbrain ( talk) 08:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
This is all dumb. Abrupt Climate Change is a real thing. Tipping points is gunk William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Runaway climate change is more developed, and both cover the same basic concept... once there are enough feedbacks, the climate system takes off looking for a new equilibrium. We should talk about that in one place, not two. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 19:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Why did we merge the runaway climate change article into this article? Please change this. "Tipping points in the climate system"? That's not searchable.
Please restore the original runaway climate change article. Thanks. Nashhinton ( talk) 04:47, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
I think we need a new category/heading here- Runaway Carbon Dioxide. This is unrelated to climate and weather. The idea, framed out by Bill McKibben in "Falter"(2019) is this: Human CO2 emissions ~37GT/year are causing atmospheric CO2 (~414ppm) to rise at an increasing rate. This is reacting with seawater to form carbonic acid, causing ocean pH to fall (~30% since 1751). Eventually, (possibly CO2 >=1000ppm), many current ocean species (such as phytoplankton) will disappear, being replaced with disaster taxa (i.e. Chlorobiaceae). These species emit hydrogen sulfide, which harms the ozone layer. This leads to a breakdown also in plants on land. Essentially repeating the conditions of the end-Permian mass extinction. Norse1933 ( talk) 11:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
The article has a section on large scale tipping elements and regional tipping elements. This seems to me to be an arbitrary distinction. The reality is that over ten years ago, [1] scientists identified nine (main) possible tipping points. [2] These need to be documented in the article. I have added headings. Please feel free to add material to each of them. Yaklib ( talk) 20:53, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
References
@NewsandEventsGuy: Carbon brief isn't a blog. Has editorial board and a reputation for fact-checking. It's significantly more reliable than for instance The Guardian. FemkeMilene ( talk) 20:04, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm not pissed, just informal/direct wording in a discussion with an old friend. I'll contact them. :) FemkeMilene ( talk) 22:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
@ Yaklib: I moved your comment here from user talk, so its all in one place per the WP:TPG.... NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 11:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC) (@NAEG), You removed [ information] because it is on Carbon Brief - claiming that although you are a regular reader, it is a blog, of dubious neutral RS value for WP purposes. The particular article which is the source of the information is written by Dr Christina Schaedel, a research associate at the Ecosystem Dynamics Research Lab at Northern Arizona University. I'm inclined to think that would make her a reliable source. I hope you don't mind if I revert your edit. Yaklib ( talk) 10:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm adding this comment here instead of at Talk:Carbon Brief so we have a centralized discussion, as recommended by the WP:TPG.
Some years ago we debated CB as an RS at the RS noticeboard in this archived thread. At the time we tweaked the corresponding article about CB using their own words talking about themselves, per WP:ABOUTSELF. Today Femkemilene complained that their own description about themself was "too close to the mission statement" even though our ABOUTSELF policy explicallows such useage. F changed that text to explicitly describe the work of CB as "journalism", which is Femke's opinion in this contested discussion. That's getting kinda close to POINTY or GAMING, Femke. You're not using the available sourcing to establish CB as an RS, you're editing to advocate for that outcome. That's thin arctic ice, one might say. Patience with your outreach effort would be wiser IMO.
That said, I'm going to delay a decision on reverting that change for the time being. Instead, I just wanted to fully document my research and thinking. Is Carbon Brief "journalism"? Or a self-published group blog by an NGO? For our analysis please compare to Forbes. Both websites have editorial boards. Over at Forbes, the Forbes legalese titled "Terms" explicitly denies editorial control or ownership of guest contributions. Carbon Brief lacks any explanation about editorial control and responsibility for content. But that doesn't help us today. So the fact is, we might believe this or that, but we just don't know. We do know the site is funded by the NGO described in our article, but we don't know how independent the editorial team is from what is apparently a single source of funding. We also can't tell if the editorial team has control and accepts responsibility for guest submitted content. So right now today it seems like wiki policy compels us to view it as a WP:SELFPUBLISHED source, at least until CB provides additional info. It's my understanding that Femkemilene is going to contact the CB team to inform them of this discussion, and suggest they release a TERMS statement so not just Wikipedia but the whole world will have a more clear understanding of the nature of CB's work. Which will help not just us, but CB too.
But today.... this isn't necessarily a deal breaker to using CB as a source right now, because there are two exceptions that allow us to use selfpub sources. The first is when they talk WP:ABOUTSELF. The other is when the author meets the expert exception in the policy (see section WP:SELFPUBLISH). The expert exception lists criteria to apply on a case by case base for each desired citation, and if that seems like a lot of work its probably because it is. However, the policy also says Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources. and in footnotes gives examples of institutions that advise citing the original sources underlying the selfpublished work instead.
So is CB "journalism"? Maybe... they are getting awards with that word in the title of the award. But when the editorial board does not tell us how they operate, I'm not sure we should rely on the characterizations of their work by third parties. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 12:19, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I have read quite a lot of RSN on natural and social science topics, and my experience is that sources with less tendency to correct mistakes and find balance in experts are deemed (mostly) reliable. Let's wait a week. I've used this source in FAs without getting any pushback on it not meeting the HQRS standards, which go beyong RS. FemkeMilene ( talk) 12:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
In the first paragraph of the lede, the glacial cycles are given as an example of a tipping point. I'm not sure how much threshold behaviour is present there (probably a bit in the ice sheet response), but it's certainly not a canonical example of tipping. The lede focusses on the external forcing, rather than the internal threshold behaviour. Maybe just taking one of the ice sheet tipping points, or the Amazon one would serve our audience better. FemkeMilene ( talk) 09:36, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
The cited source doesn't use the words 'tipping', 'critical' or 'threshold'. I've boldly removed it altogether. FemkeMilene ( talk) 09:59, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Hello Yaklib,
I see you and others have made lots of great improvements to this very important article. Suggest you nominate it as a good article. I know there is a fair bit more to do but as it generally takes weeks before anyone picks up a nomination for review I think you have already got it past the point where it would be "quick failed" and can continue working on it while you wait for review. Keep up the good work. Chidgk1 ( talk) 07:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Yaklib, Positive climate future is unfortunately not a reliable source. First of all, it is a blog, which is typically considered self-published if it isn't part of an established media outlet. Secondly, I see no evidence of professional staff or an editorial board to do fact checking. Thirdly, the fact you are citing from them is a common myth: see this national geographic article which offers a great explanation. FemkeMilene ( talk) 06:55, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Currently this article quotes the IPCC definition of a tipping point as:
"A level of change in system properties beyond which a system reorganises, often in a non-linear manner, and does not return to the initial state even if the drivers of the change are abated. For the climate system, the term refers to a critical threshold at which global or regional climate changes from one stable state to another stable state. Tipping points are also used when referring to impact: the term can imply that an impact tipping point is (about to be) reached in a natural or human system."
I am not entirely comfortable with the notion that climate change will lead to a new stable state. If the world remains hotter and sea levels are ten metres higher than they are now, and that lasts for thousands of years, I suppose that could be called stable. But it will take millennia for all this to happen. There is nothing stable about the process of change currently taking place. The IPCC definition appears to suggest it happens overnight. I think the way it is worded is quite misleading. What does anyone else think? Yaklib ( talk) 06:02, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
One of the important improvement needed to the article is the switch from mainly having primary sources (single studies, like the highly controversial one about cloud cover) to mainly secondary sourcing (review papers / review reports, like the IPCC or the NCA). This is needed to make sure we don't put undue weight on the most scary sourding paper, and make sure the caveats are all in place (for the cloud, the extrapolation of a small area the researchers studied to the globe). See WP:PSTS. FemkeMilene ( talk) 06:49, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
The new IPCC report is out, providing us with an amazing synthesis of published research. For loads of Wikipedia pages, we can increase the certainty with which we can describe impacts, probably including this one. However, the first discrepancy I noticed between our article and the IPCC is the description of ice loss in the Arctic, which is linear with tempearture according to the Technical Summary, page 43. I don't think the cited sources supported that there was a tipping point for this impact, so I've removed that paragraph. FemkeMilene ( talk) 18:49, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
In the technical summary there is "Box TS.9: Irreversibility, Tipping Points and Abrupt Changes" so I want to ask everyone whether you think this article should include all three of these things? And if so whether the article should be renamed? Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:59, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
The second sentence of the article defines the scope. Before it defined three domains in which tipping could take place: physical, ecosystem and humans. The article is only talking about tipping points in the former two, so I agree with @ Yaklib that we can change the scope. We do talk a lot about tipping in ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest and boreal forest). Shall we change the second sentence to "Tipping points have been identified in the physical climate system and in the biosphere (or in ecosystems), and can have severe impacts on humans." Alternatively, we could include some social tipping points, such as the tipping away from coal use, but I'm not that keen on that. FemkeMilene ( talk) 10:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
This section is currently waffle with no specific information. If we intend to keep this section going, it needs to include up to date information about what is happening in different tipping elements which raise alarm. See The amount of Greenland ice that melted on Tuesday could cover Florida in 2 inches of water. This is an example of an early warning signal. There are hundreds of other examples available. Yaklib ( talk) 00:17, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
I have added some early warning signals for Greenland. However, it might be best to include early warning signals for each of the nine tipping elements as a sub heading under the main heading of each one. Yaklib ( talk) 01:06, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
It is meant to be scientifically accurate. The term EWS/EWI have a very specific meaning and therefore shouldn't be used to refer to something else. Some of what is now under those headings looks like synthesis anyway, with many of the sources not mentioning the term tipping. It's your interpretation that these numbers are relevant to tipping. While it isn't quite untrue, we are not meant to imply a relationship when the sources do not. FemkeMilene ( talk) 20:05, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm very aware of the need of a collaboration between lay people and experts, and I'm always really grateful for feedback when I'm not clear enough, like you gave before. Please bear with me, real life is crazy. FemkeMilene ( talk) 20:08, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm sorry to hear that. Which was the offending edit? I hope it's not the style edits, which can be very peculiar to an encyclopedia and it may seem weird that I changed some sentences rather drastically. I'm always aiming to discuss and find a compromise. FemkeMilene ( talk) 21:32, 1 August 2021 (UTC) I've made a new heading of 'mathematical theory', signposting that readers who aren't interested in maths can easily skip the theory of early warning signals. I'll go over the entire subsection again to make it easier later. FemkeMilene ( talk) 22:09, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
Yaklib As you have improved this very important article so much already I hope you will consider continuing here some time in the future. Maybe it would be best for us all to take a break from this article for a few weeks. Because I guess after AR6 WG1 comes out it will take a little while for the press to digest it. I hope the professional writers will then explain AR6 views on EWS in a way that I will find easy to understand (if anyone wants to add equations for grad students I think they should be in a footnote so as not to put off weak math people like me). Also I am guessing that there might be more than one theory about EWS - but presumably AR6 will indicate the consensus if there is one. For sure after that I will then nominate this for "good article" if nobody else does, because the subject is so important. Anyway whether or not you return thanks for your hard work - without you I would have been put off by the poor original state of the article and left it as too much work. Chidgk1 ( talk) 13:31, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
Co-nomination means I endorse the article, of course I would only do this if I think the article is accurate. I'm happy for others to nominate, and as an involved editor, I'm not going to be the one reviewing the nomination anyway.
Lenton is not using the term EWS, because he uses different evidence of nearing a tipping point than EWS (namely modelling evidence). I'm keen on including more evidence that tipping points are close to their modelled threshold, as long as we don't call it EWS. There is no need to use the word 'Early warning signal' for this, there are plenty of words we can use that do not have a conflicting scientific meaning.
May I point you towards WP:Focus on content, rather than focussing on a person. If you have comments about my behaviour, I'm happy to further discuss them on my user talk page. FemkeMilene ( talk) 09:13, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
The Wang study makes the connection, not Monbiot. The abstract says "Our results suggest that if environmental regimes are sufficiently affected by large external impacts that flickering is induced." In the body of the article it says: "In systems in which exogenous drivers result in high levels of disturbance, flickering can be a more likely source of early warning signals than critical slowing down."
Extreme weather events are specific examples of 'large external impacts' and 'exogenous drivers resulting in high levels of disturbance'. Yaklib ( talk) 20:30, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Two points can be made about information from the Fischer study. 1) There are a few sentences in this WP article that do not contain the words 'tipping point'. That does not make those sentences irrelevant. They are there to add context and expand on information in other sentences. 2) The sentence you claim is irrelevant is about the frequency of extreme weather events - ie its about 'flickering' - which is an early warning signal. So its totally relevant. Yaklib ( talk) 09:25, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Y seems very keen on this text [7], sourced to CNN [8]. But CNN is clueless about climate change and the IPCC; it isn't clear who made up their text for them. But it isn't in the report, as you may verify for yourself by opening the report (SPM) and using ctrl-F William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:27, 23 September 2021 (UTC)