Category: Email to Members

Wednesday 7th February 2024.

At 19.30

Meeting opens 10 minutes before.

Zoom link available to members

Prof. Tim Lenton, Exeter University.

Tipping points in climate science normally refer to small changes in the Earth system that unleash much broader, typically damaging impacts that accelerate climate change. Well-known examples are rising sea levels due to disintegration of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, or the release of methane from the thawing permafrost. They help to underline the urgency of climate action. Today most people understand we must reduce emissions – and very quickly.

This evening Tim will summarise recent evidence regarding climate tipping points, which supports declarations that we are in a ‘climate emergency’. Then he will turn to identifying positive social tipping points that will need to be triggered to have any hope of limiting global warming to well below 2C.

Tim Lenton is Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at Exeter University. His 25 years of research includes developing models to understand the Earth’s behaviour. He co-authored the “Planetary Boundaries” framework and is renowned for his work identifying climate tipping points. He won the European Geosciences Union Outstanding Young Scientist Award in

2006 and subsequently many other prestigious awards. He is in the top 100 Reuters “Hot List” of the worlds top climate scientists so is good at communicating his extensive knowledge.