Their analysis covers 16 key Earth systems, including oceans, ice sheets and forests, that are likely to destabilize if the planet continues to warm. If large parts of the Amazon rainforest and tropical coral reefs die, they absorb less carbon dioxide, triggering a dangerous chain reaction of warming.<\/p>\n
If Earth\u2019s climate starts on a hothouse trajectory, it would represent a \u201cglobal tipping point\u201d as the heating sustains itself even if greenhouse gas emissions drop, said lead author William Ripple<\/a>, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University and a leading researcher on climate tipping points.<\/p>\n In the backyard, that\u2019s the moment when the push is so hard that the swing hesitates at the top, just long enough to show that the ride may not be under control anymore and the chains are being tested.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat typically took thousands of years is now happening in decades,\u201d Ripple said, adding that human-caused warming is already nudging the climate system out of 11,000 years of relative stability with good conditions for farming and societal development.<\/p>\n Earth could be entering a period of unprecedented climate change on a one-way trajectory, in which processes such as ice-sheet collapse can continue even if the average global temperature is stabilized, he said.<\/p>\n Recent observations suggest that the climate may be responding more strongly than some models predicted, Ripple added. \u201cWe are concerned that policymakers and the public may not yet be aware of these recent developments.\u201d<\/p>\n In late January, another group of leading climate scientists urged<\/a> policymakers to adopt a climate goal of limiting human-caused warming to 1 degree Celsius above the pre-fossil fuel era, which is more ambitious than the 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius target set in the Paris Agreement. They\u2019ve also recently reported that Earth is losing its reflective sheen<\/a>, which amplifies warming, and that key ocean currents<\/a> are changing in ways that destabilize the entire global climate system.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not clear if the scientific warnings are making a difference in \u201ca post-truth era in which too many people prefer pleasant lies over unpleasant truths,\u201d said Reinhard Steurer<\/a>, a professor of climate policy and governance at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna who studies how climate science and policy interact. He said that new studies outlining disastrous scenarios are unlikely to have much impact in the current political climate, but that researchers should keep speaking out, and not surrender to \u201ctechno illusions or hopium.\u201d<\/p>\n The authors of the new paper stressed that a self-sustaining hothouse trajectory is not the same as a Hothouse Earth state, which would be when the global climate rebalances at a much hotter average temperature.<\/p>\n No Good Analog Climates<\/p>\n Instead of offering a single new climate forecast, the paper synthesizes decades of research revealing how different parts of the climate system influence one another. When one part of the system is destabilized, they wrote, it can amplify stress in others, pushing the planet along a self-reinforcing warming pathway.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earth has had hothouse climates in the ancient geological past. But the authors of the new paper said there may not be a parallel to what\u2019s happening now, at least not during the past 3 million years, co-author Johan Rockstr\u00f6m<\/a>, co-director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research<\/a>, said via email.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason is that our starting point is a WARM state. So, we are going from WARM to HOT,\u201d he wrote. This may mean \u201cgetting stuck\u201d at a global mean surface temperature of 4 to 6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n That amount of warming goes beyond current expectations and would devastate ecosystems and communities globally. Many other current climate projections suggest that, under current policies, warming would level off somewhere between 2.7 and 3 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n Human-caused warming is happening much faster than any other warming documented in the paleoclimate record, and it\u2019s also unprecedented because it\u2019s driven by a single dominant force, Rockstr\u00f6m added: human greenhouse gas emissions. Under these conditions, research has documented that Earth is already losing some of the natural buffers that dampened climate swings in recent millennia.<\/p>\n \u201cWe now see worrying signs that the Earth system is losing resilience,\u201d Rockstr\u00f6m said. Recent extremes, he added, are a sign that the climate system \u201cmay respond more strongly to the same amount of warming than it did before.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n The authors wrote that the magnitude and pace of recent climate extremes \u201chave surprised scientists, raising questions about how well current climate projections capture risk.\u201d<\/p>\n One warning sign is the recent acceleration of warming, from about 0.18 degrees Celsius per decade from 1970 to 2014, to about 0.26 degrees Celsius in the last decade; another is the reduced carbon uptake in tropical, temperate and boreal forests. And, Rockstr\u00f6m added, \u201cEarth is getting darker, due to multiple factors,\u201d including melting ice, tree lines moving closer to the poles in the Northern and Southern hemispheres and changing cloud patterns due to increased evaporation and moisture in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n The recent acceleration of warming was also noted recently by climate scientist James Hansen, a former NASA researcher who has accurately projected the planet\u2019s global warming trajectory for several decades.<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/William-Ripple-731x1024.jpg\"\/)
In a new paper, William Ripple, an ecologist and climate researcher at Oregon State University, warns that human-caused warming could put Earth on a hothouse trajectory. Credit: Courtesy of William Ripple<\/p>\n![\"Climate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Climate_tipping_points_in_Earth_s_climate_system-1024x576.jpg\"\/)
Climate tipping points are key thresholds in Earth systems like oceans, ice sheets, and forests, where warming can push the climate into a new state. Once crossed, these changes can be hard to reverse and can start a chain reaction that affects ecosystems, weather extremes and the global climate. Credit: ESA<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/gOmMa-dc_400x400-300x300.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n