Six tipping points ‘likely’ to be crossed

Current rates of warming will put the Earth at risk of slot crossing six "dangerous" climate tipping points, according to a new analysis.

Crossing these thresholds would disrupt the Earth's systems triggering the collapse of ice sheets and the loss of coral reefs.

Scientific commentators have previously said that reaching such a point would be a "climatic emergency".

The researchers analysed evidence for tipping points from 200 recent papers.

They considered:

At what temperature the tipping points would be reached
What impacts there would be for Earth's other systems
Over what timescales the impacts would be felt.
The research, based on data published since 2008, found that at current levels of global heating the world is already at risk of triggering six dangerous climate tipping points, and risks increase with each tenth of a degree of warming.