Planetary foresight: envisioning an early warning system for climate tipping points

Climate tipping points present significant long-term challenges, with critical thresholds at risk of being crossed within this century. Crossing these thresholds would lead to widespread self-perpetuating changes, from unprecedented sea-level rise to inhospitable weather extremes, for which humanity is inadequately prepared. To build preparedness, humanity requires a better sense of when such thresholds could be crossed, over what timescale the effects might unfold, and what the impacts would be. Here, we ask: “Can we build an early warning system (EWS) for climate tipping points?” After introducing climate tipping points and their potential for cascading impacts, we identify lessons from existing actionable early warning frameworks, such as tsunami and famine detection. Using the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre as an example tipping system, with the Greenland Ice Sheet as a freshwater forcing function, we outline a proposed approach to build a prototype EWS by holistically integrating low-cost sensor swarms and artificial intelligence with physical models underpinned by robust uncertainty quantification. From these foundations, we identify the research gaps and hurdles to converting scientific signals into trustworthy scenarios for decision-makers. We envision an operational system that empowers human agency, providing decadal foresight necessary for strategic responses, building resilience from national climate security to the global financial system.