Climate Tipping Points are Real, Stop Denying It

The New York Times recently published an article about various climate change tipping points. Anthony Watts, a climate change denier, then published a blogpost calling the article “nothing more than speculation.” In this video I want to put these claims into perspective.

🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜

#science #sciencenews #climate #climatenews

[watsonwrote]

My doctor couldn't tell me when exactly smoking three packs of cigarettes a day would cause lung disease, so I'm going to keep smoking until that date is revealed.

[Copesthetic-Aesthetic]

"Knee high by the 4th of July"
Not this year.
Try 6 feet high by the end of June.
Got to plant real early.
Then it rained weekly for 2 months mixed with plenty of sun shine.
The shift between the seasons gets less noticeable every year.
Each year we get less snow.
Lakes, and ponds haven't frozen over in years.
Bleached, and destroyed vast coral reef systems.
Giant glaciers that we've watched melt out of existence.
Iceland, and the Antarctic missing pieces the size of Indiana.
The thawing of permafrost.
We're gonna keep fiddling around.
Until crickets, and electric cars won't be an option.
They will be mandated.
Monopolies utilizing horrible manufacturing techniques, and government lobbying.
In countries with little to zero oversight.
Is the driving force behind our current environmental pickle.

[Hybridog]

One thing we can count on if things get really bad (they will) is authoritarianism. When conditions reach the point where even normal lobsters in the pot, er I mean people in the world, can easily recognize things are bad, they will clamor for action. As the masses demand somethig be done, any action taken will be extreme and severe in order for it to work at all. That action will mean dictators, authoritarian democracies, war lords etc. will began applying change via direct force to corporations, states and people. I'm 67 and considering doing an extreme energy remodel of my home (in Texas), so that the remaining years I have can be relatively pleasant and comfortable - inside my house at least.

[chemallex]

The main problem with predicting the tipping points is that you essentially need to describe and model a small difference between very large values (Energy input vs. outflow). Even a small mistake in modelling one of these values results in a completely different result on the difference.

Obviously it goes in both directions, a small deviation may mean that we start discussing a tipping point that isn’t one, or utterly overlook one that is actually quite important. Or the same with the timing.

[philipgotthelf]

For sure, tipping points are real. I was watching the Indiana Fever playing against Connecticut Sun when rookie Caitlin Clark broke the rookie record for 3-pointers and I tipped my beer over in my enthusiasm! What spilled out will never be recovered. All I could do was open another bottle. It’s still beer, but it was structurally changed. Instead of drinking one, I consumed 1 1/2, possibly leading to a further expanding waistline and an inevitable need to diet. Actions have consequences!

[enigmated]

NEVER start with NewYork Times. NEVER. omg why.... now telling thousands to ignore this

[bobmeador]

Wasn't the actual "tipping point" for global warming about 24, 000 years ago? I seem to see a lot of emphasis on CO2 as a warming gas and claims of man made warming, yet the best evidence in the geologic and hydrologic record establishes a "healthy" baseline of atmospheric CO2 at 0.06 to 0.09ppm. Our modern record shows an increase over about 200 years from under 0.03 to approximately 0.04ppm. How could such a tiny modern shift, still well below the median of healthy "geologic modern" levels, create a global tipping point?

[davidbidwell]

I'm a fan of Watts and believe a strong dose of skepticism is needed here. I do not believe public policy should be dictated by computer models with scores of variables. Neither will I believe in false analogies like the melting of ice cubes is somehow related to the vast ice sheets in Greenland, Arctic, or Antarctic.

[MrkBO]

If as a population we tolerate all the BS going on in society I see no reason to care what we do to the place

[darkwingscooter]

Hysteresis not the same thing as tipping points. A tipping point is a threshold for system stability. Hysteresis breaks down at tipping points, but the fact of hysteresis in a system does not imply a tipping point.


Hysteresis is not the general property under which tipping points fall. The terms describe completely different concepts. Rather, tipping points are a property that some systems with hysteresis may exhibit.

It's not science to claims the existence tipping points in a complex system. Science is when you precisely and reliably predict them.


Every complex system has hysteresis by definition. Not every complex system has tipping points reachable by the processes you claim will reach them.


"Tippping points" in climatology (i.e. without precision or reliability) is the same sort of pseudoscience as horoscopes. "It's difficult" is not a defence.

[MyKharli]

climate change is like watching your children get run over in slow motion when there was no reason to cross the road and you told them a million times .

[wkgmathguy]

One problem with people pointing out the dangers of tipping points is that there have been many times over the years when we were told that if we don't do some drastic thing within a (usually) short time that THE WORLD WILL COME TO AN

Then the warmeggdon doesn't happen. And expert opinion is discounted a bit more.

One of these days the boy will cry wolf, but that time the wolf really will be at the door.

[myart]

Except they have no clue what the "tipping point" actually is. Their '1.5' degrees is total nonsense, since it has been far hotter than that in human history. Same goes for Co2 levels which have also been far higher than today.

[shadesofgreen]

damn she got compromised by climate activists

[terrylandess]

Learning long ago about how the ocean's salinity levels drive the currents and that effects the weather is enough to know the difference between a man made smog alert and a life threatening weather phenomenon.

[Tailspin]

Most people rarely or never talk about climate change, even those with young children who ought to care. They are totally focused on the immediate issues such as schools, houses, clothes, holidays, cars and so on.

[Charonupthekuiper]

We can predict eclipses, forecast the next day's weather (with reasonable accuracy), but who knows how our climate will change? The so called weasel words are contextual - we have fire escapes because our buildings could catch fire. Therefore we prepare for a very unlikely but serious event.

[tracyclark]

There is always lots of tipping points when there's lot of money to be made

[SigEpBlue]

Years ago, when I was taking courses for my environmental science minor, we called it the [North Atlantic] thermohaline circulation. When did that change? I can't say I'm a fan of the "new" AMOC terminology nor acronym.

[personmcperson]

It's just weird how zero of the many many climate meetings and changes have made any effect on CO2 rates, and that most recommended changes, such as the absolute failure that is carbon taxes, just work to funnel money to already rich people. It's also weird how there is statistically zero correlation between CO2 rise rate and temp rise rate...