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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 02/09/2026

Honored to have helped review this new, major @unep.org report on “Limiting #Overshoot”, released today! There are no good outcomes in overshooting 1.5°C. Therefore, any exceedance must be as small and short as possible to reduce risks of irreversible impacts, especially from the #cryosphere. ❄️🧊🌊🧪

Front cover of the new UNEP report “Limiting overshoot: Navigating exceedance of 1.5°C and pathways towards return”

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 11/06/2026

The latest update of the Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) report shows 2025 among warmest years on record with 1.39°C above preindustrial. Human-caused global warming is now expected to exceed 1.5°C threshold by around 2030 🌍🌡️ More details here: climatechangetracker.org/climate-chan...

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 16/02/2026

9/ The Antarctic Ice Sheet took millions of years to form. Yet, with continued emissions, we may commit parts of it to irreversible long-term loss — potentially within decades. Near-term emissions determine how many thresholds we may cross in the long-term.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 16/02/2026

6/ But it’s not just West Antarctica. Our results indicate that major ice basins in East Antarctica (e.g. Wilkes) become increasingly vulnerable at sustained warming of ~2–5C. East Antarctica holds much more ice — enough to raise sea levels 10X more than West Antarctica.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 16/02/2026

5/ West Antarctic basins (inc Thwaites & Pine Island) have the lowest thresholds. At today’s ~1.3C, parts of these regions may already be committed to long-term loss. Important: crossing a tipping point ≠ immediate collapse. Ice sheets respond slowly—but once triggered, the process is hard to stop.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 16/02/2026

4/ Some ice basins show relatively gradual ice loss as temperatures rise. Others exhibit tipping behavior: beyond a critical warming level, ice loss accelerates disproportionately and can become irreversible over centuries to millennia.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 16/02/2026

3/ We analyzed 18 major Antarctic ice drainage basins using the ice-sheet model #PISM, gradually increasing global mean temperature to map their long-term response. Result: different regions respond very differently to warming.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 16/02/2026

🔔🚨 New Publication Alert! Research has shown that the Antarctic Ice Sheet is a climate tipping element. We found: it’s not one — it’s many. 📄 Paper (open access): www.nature.com/articles/s41... 📢 Press release: www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/late... Tread below 🧵👇

Photo showing a tall, jagged ice front of the Ronne Ice Shelf in West Antarctica rising above the calm surface of the Weddell Sea. Credit: Torsten Albrecht / PIK.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 20/05/2025

“... far too warm” (1.5°C) is indeed correct: we already know that even today‘s warming is sufficient to trigger the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the long term. The ‘safe limit’ is below +1°C of global warming! #ClimateCrisis #SeaLevelRise #IceSheets #WAIS #Collapse #TippingPoints

Screenshot showing an excerpt from the new paper by Stokes et al. titled "Warming of +1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets" with some parts of the text highlighted.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 27/02/2025

✅ Ja, eine Erwärmung von 3°C bis zum Ende des Jahrhunderts ist aktuell nicht auszuschließen. Aber: ❌ Nein, die Studie sagt nicht, dass Grönland bis zum Ende des Jahrhunderts kippen könnte. Es bräuchte viele Jahrtausende(!) dauerhaft erhöhte Temperatur bis Grönland geschmolzen wäre... [2/3]

Abbildung 2 aus der Grönland-Studie von Petrini et al. (TC, 2025). Panel (a) zeigt Grönlands Eisvolumen in Metern Meeresspiegeläquivalent für verschiedene Szenarien über den Simulationszeitraum von 40 Tausend Jahren.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 09/01/2025

Around this time of the year, the peak of the melt season in #Antarctica is usually reached, but this year's spike in the total melt extent is exceptionally impressive! 🥵 (Source: nsidc.org/ice-sheets-t...)

Graph showing an exceptional spike in 2024-2025 Antarctic melt extent compared to previous years.

Map of Antarctica showing the 2024-2025 ice sheet melt extent.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 26/11/2024

How the #Greenland Ice Sheet fared in 2024. SPOILER: It lost about eighty billion (80,000,000,000) metric tons of ice to the global oceans. Or to put it another way: on average, an ice mass of this size every five days.

Computer visualization showing an ice block the size of a billion metric tons overlaid on Central Park, New York City.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 13/11/2024

”We cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice.“ ❄️🧊🌡️💧 Over 50 leading cryosphere scientists warn of vastly higher impacts and costs to the global economy given accelerating losses in the world’s snow and ice regions. ➡️ State of the Cryosphere 2024 report: iccinet.org/statecryo24/

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 02/10/2024

This graphic from @insideclimatenews is wrong. It doesn’t show the Greenland Ice Sheet in 500, but in almost 1,000 years instead. See the figure from the original paper below, which you can check out here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @bberwyn.bsky.social Any chance to correct this?

Figure 2 from Aschwanden et al., Science Advances (2019) publication

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 26/06/2024

No, not really. In the figure below the continental shelf edge can be seen as the sharp transition between light and dark blue off the coast of the continents. The grounding line is the black line (in the case of Antarctica, the inner of the two).

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 20/06/2024

Must-Watch / Must-Know for everyone! Are people aware that the #Cryosphere (Earth’s frozen parts) features several #TippingPoints with catastrophic global impacts? ❄️🧊🏔 ⬇️ Pam Pearson, Director of ICCI, about the importance & urgency of serious #ClimateAction 🎞 www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR0a...

Map from the Global Tipping Points Report 2023 showing our current knowledge about tipping points in the Earth's cryosphere.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/03/2024

Just recently @edhawkins.bsky.social also shared a great version of this graph (could only find it on X though, not sure if he shared it here too…)

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 26/02/2024

In the sketch, we are in the light red top right-hand corner. If we do not manage to cool global temps in the long term, we take the orange path. In the better case, we take the purple one. More details in these two papers: 1️⃣ tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/... 2️⃣ tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/...

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

Last but not least: Earth’s tipping systems can interact in ways that destabilise one another, making tipping ‘cascades’ possible, where tipping one system causes another TP to be passed. But, although generally possible, such domino effects are currently still highly uncertain!

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

At sustained >2°C global warming, large subglacial basins in #EastAntarctica could also cross their TPs, and irreversible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets is likely to become locked in, with far-reaching impacts for the livelihoods of millions of people.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

Already at today’s 1.2°C global warming, we cannot rule out that the ice sheets of #Greenland and #WestAntarctica may pass their TPs eventually, resulting in several meters of committed long-term #SeaLevelRise, and that parts of #Permafrost become subject to abrupt thaw.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

Let’s start with the Executive Summary: In the cryosphere, six TPs are identified, including large-scale TPs for the Greenland & Antarctic #IceSheets. Localised TPs likely exist for #Glaciers and #Permafrost thaw. Evidence for large-scale TPs in #SeaIce and permafrost is limited.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

I will focus here only on TPs in the #Cryosphere (the Earth’s frozen parts), which is most vulnerable to global climate warming. If you’d like to learn more about what TPs are first, see this nice explainer by @carbonbrief.org, for example: carbonbrief.org/explainer-ni...

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

The report identifies “negative” tipping points (TPs) in the Earth system, ranging from ice-sheet collapse to rainforest dieback, but also focuses on “positive” TPs in socio-economical, technical & political systems that could trigger positive change and thus mitigate risks.

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 15/12/2023

Last week we published the first-ever Global Tipping Points Report at #COP28🌍. ➡️ global-tipping-points.org I contributed to the chapter on tipping points in the cryosphere 🧊❄️🇦🇶🇬🇱, led by Prof. Ricarda Winkelmann. #GlobalTippingPoints #Climate #TippingPoints #GTPR2023 A quick 🧵:

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 04/12/2023

First-ever Global Tipping Points Report, summarizing our current understanding of the risks of negative and opportunities of positive #TippingPoints in the Earth system and society, to be launched on Wednesday during COP28🌍. More info: global-tipping-points.org #GTPR2023 #Climate #TippingPoints

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 02/11/2023

Extremely happy that my new paper on the future of Antarctic surface melting is finally published! 🎉 We use a new melt module in the ice-flow model PISM, which in addition to temperature also takes into account the effect of solar radiation & thus the melt–albedo feedback. doi.org/10.5194/tc-1...

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 02/10/2023

🚨 Publication Alert: we've recently published a major 2-part study on the stability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. In brief: we find no indication of irreversible, unstable retreat of West Antarctica yet—but global warming is already enough to trigger slow but certain ice loss over coming centuries.

Image of an ice shelf in Antarctica, captioned with the headline "West Antarctic ice sheet: not destabilized yet, but possibly on tipping path".

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Julius Garbe @juliusgarbe.github.io · 27/09/2023

Sign up for our upcoming Policy Event on #TippingPoints in #Antarctica 🇦🇶! More info and registration link here 👉 www.tipaccs.eu/antarctic-po...

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