Tipping points and the Earth's climate - how do we model the risk?
In April, the IPCC published the next installment of reports on the state of the planet . Several alarms on the state of the planet were sounded - and yet, most researchers were concerned that the report did not go far enough. Why was that? One of the challenges with synthesizing science across multiple areas and bringing it to the point where policy makers can make decisions that follow the science is that the latest research often doesn’t make it into these reports. That’s because the research is cutting-edge, which by definition means that new discoveries are happening and the science is not yet at the point where clear recommendations can be made. Second, with cutting-edge science, researchers are still discussing the nitty-gritty details of what the processes are, what’s driving them and how the system is functioning. That makes it much more difficult to reach a scientific consensus on the topic. So, what is one such area of cutting edge research in climate science? Climate chan