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Climate tipping: West Antarctica ice sheet collapse may stabilize North Atlantic currents

Phys.org · University of Copenhagen · last updated

It has been hypothesized, that the tipping of one element of the Earth’s system can catalyze the tipping of others in a cascade. A study gives an example of an alternative option, in which the collapse of one component might in fact make another system tipping less likely.

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State of Play

What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet. 

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