Soon, but Not Yet: Have We Reached a Climate Tipping Point?

This summer has been an unprecedented one for the planet—but the worst is still to come if global warming trends continue.

Smoke from the Canadian wildfires made its way down to the Northeast region, turning the sky hazy and the sun a bright orange. Credit: Emma Denes ‘25

From record-breaking high temperatures to smoky skies tinted in orange, climate change has been hot off the press this summer—hot off the planet, that is. But while populations across the globe quite literally felt the heat, the extreme conditions cannot be relied upon as an indicator of the future.

“There is no such thing as a new normal. Things are just going to get progressively worse for all of our lifetimes,” said Mark Lowery, assistant director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Office of Climate Change. 

According to a recent analysis, July was the planet’s hottest month ever recorded, and climate change made the month’s extreme heat much more probable. This year is on track to be one of the top five warmest on record. Within the past 30 days at the time of publication, over 75 million Americans were under some form of heat alert.

While this summer might appear to be the peak of global warming for the United States, more alarming conditions are on the way if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace. Last year, carbon dioxide concentrations already reached over 50% above pre-industrial amounts. 

“We will continue to see many of those types of extremes—particularly heat, extreme precipitation events—increase in probability and magnitude with every additional ton of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere,” said Sarah Kapnick, chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in the federal agency’s most recent global climate teleconference.

Intensified Natural Trends 

The planet currently finds itself in a state of El Niño, which occurs every two to seven years. During this natural climate phenomenon, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean rise. And since the Pacific is the largest ocean, El Niño can affect weather patterns worldwide.

Climate change is not helping the situation. One study published earlier this year found that increased warming from human-induced sources might make El Niño (and its cooler counterpart, La Niña) stronger and more frequent. 

“In the past, almost all record hot years have been El Niño years, and now, what would normally be record years, are being juiced by a long-term trend,” said Lowery.

Warmer air, on top of drier conditions, also adds fuel to the fire—literally. Strong winds from Hurricane Dora, along with abnormally dry conditions and flammable non-native vegetation, spurred one of the country’s deadliest wildfires on the island of Maui, Hawaii, in early August.

Smoke from the Canadian wildfires, which have already burned more than 25 million acres of forest, blanketed the Northeast region in hazy conditions during the summer. The DEC issued air quality health advisories throughout the months of June and July. At one point, the air in New York City was the world’s second-most polluted.

All the extra warmth, and moisture that comes with it, also supplies us with extra rain. Projections for New York’s Region 5, which includes Dutchess County, include an increase in precipitation by up to 7% in the 2020s. This year’s Atlantic hurricane season, which concludes Nov. 30, is likely to be an above-normal one.

Earlier in July, the Hudson Valley region was hit by heavy rain, especially in nearby Orange County. The flash flooding killed one, blocked local roadways and even suspended service on Amtrak and Metro-North rail lines. Disastrous amounts of rainfall in the state of Vermont followed soon after.

“All that amount of water is being delivered in more intense storm events, and so what you’re seeing is that the cover of land isn’t able to absorb that intense amount of water as easily,” said Heather Gierloff, Hudson River programs supervisor and estuary coordinator for the DEC.

Compared to temperatures from 1991-2020, this year's July was warmer than average across the globe. Credit: NOAA Climate.gov

Crossing the Threshold

Thanks to climate change, our world has already heated up by just over 1 degree Celsius and could reach 1.5 degrees of warming as early as 2030. If the planet runs that high a fever, we could reach several climate tipping points — once each is crossed, sizable consequences are likely. 

At 1.5 degrees, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could collapse. We might also witness the die-off of tropical coral reefs, a reality already in previews. Severe coral bleaching is underway off the coasts of southeast Florida and the Keys, in response to high heat stress levels that have occurred earlier than ever before.

“We’re running this great experiment on the one planet that we have to live on, and it may be a matter of what we call destructive sampling. It may be too late before we would know that we’ve passed tipping points,” said Lowery.

An additional tipping point involves the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation—an essential system of ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean that delivers warmth to the world and nutrients to marine organisms. Assuming that greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, a recent study estimated that this shutdown could come as soon as the year 2057. 

When impacted by heat stress, corals expel the algae they need to live, which bleaches them in white. Credit: Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash

Health Impacts and Beyond

Out of all forms of extreme weather, heat is the deadliest. Those affected by it can suffer hyperthermia and heat stroke, with mental health impacts also present—for example, one review study found strong evidence for heightened suicide risk. And the effects are only worsened for those who live in urban areas.

“Especially in our higher populated cities, where there isn’t a lot of shade, you’re going to find that there’s increased heat stress for those residents. Likely, they don’t have the resources to maybe cool their inner facilities, but also have limited access to outdoor shaded facilities,” said Gierloff.

While heat may be dangerous in and of itself, humidity might pose an even greater threat. Here on the East Coast, humidity is more abundant than it is out West, thanks to winds that bring us warm air from both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. More water vapor in the atmosphere, further exacerbated by global warming, means more moisture in the air—which makes it tougher to stay cool.

The lowest degree at which we evaporate water—more simply put, when we sweat—is known as the wet-bulb temperature. The highest wet-bulb temperature humans can survive at is 95 degrees Fahrenheit, but this number has already been exceeded at weather stations globally, according to a study published in 2020.

Beyond threats to physical well-being, heat and its extreme weather counterparts also produce expensive price tags when global warming is thrown into the mix. “Climate change is enhancing certain types of extremes such as severe weather, heatwaves, droughts and flooding events that may lead to billion-dollar disasters,” Kapnick said.

Amidst all the hazards of a changing climate, Gierloff sees this past summer season as the wake-up call we all need. “We’ve got major storm events, we have drought, and it’s going to start coming full circle,” she said. “I hope that they teach all the people around them that this is important. It’s happening now.”