A source-critical atlas of pathways from deep mitigation to high-end warming and Earth-system instability
Scope: Global climate futures from the late twentieth-century scenario tradition to assessments available in July 2026; formal emissions and socioeconomic pathways; named high-impact hypotheses; tipping elements; geographical, ecological, economic and social consequences. The report does not assign a single probability to the future and does not treat conditional model pathways as forecasts.
Abstract
Climate scenarios are conditional accounts of how emissions, land use, technology, institutions and inequality could combine; they are not predictions. The assessed range runs from rapid mitigation pathways that hold warming near 1.5°C to high-emissions stress tests reaching roughly 4°C or more by 2100. Current-policy assessments published in 2025 place the central trajectory nearer 2.6-2.8°C, still associated with severe and unequal impacts. Across the literature, confidence is highest for increasing heat extremes, glacier loss, sea-level rise, ocean warming, biodiversity redistribution and damage to food, water, health and infrastructure. Confidence is lower for the timing and interaction of abrupt tipping processes. Greenland and Antarctic ice loss, Atlantic circulation weakening, Amazon degradation, permafrost carbon release and coral-reef collapse differ greatly in threshold, reversibility and timescale. ‘Hothouse Earth’ and ‘Climate Endgame’ are research frameworks for systemic and catastrophic risk, not consensus forecasts. A true Venus-like runaway greenhouse is not a plausible outcome of anthropogenic emissions. The report therefore distinguishes robust impact gradients, deep uncertainty and sensationalised narrative forms while connecting scenario-making to The Sunshine Find’s archive of competing climate narratives.
Project links and cross-references: The Random Archive; Discovery of Global Warming; Countdown; Glacier Express; Thirst; Container; Necklace / Ötzi; Nations; Expedition Artist; Future; Sunshine; ELF Timeline; No Sprawl; Sabotage. These links connect scenario production to observation infrastructures, emissions, melting ice as archive, territorial loss, migration narratives and the politicisation of climate action.
Method and source policy
The report separates three evidentiary layers: (1) peer-reviewed scenario and impact research; (2) assessed institutional syntheses, especially the IPCC, UNEP and Climate Action Tracker, used for current temperature ranges and standardised projections; and (3) popular scenario labels, which are retained only when their scientific meaning is stated precisely. Quantitative values are reported as ranges and baselines are specified where possible. The numbered bibliography contains scholarly sources only. Institutional reports and databases are identified separately. Where the literature disagrees – notably over the plausibility of very high emissions, the timing of an AMOC collapse, and the strength of tipping cascades – the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved rhetorically.
Contents
1. How climate scenarios should be read
2. Scenario genealogy: IS92, SRES, RCPs and SSPs
3. Formal pathway catalogue
4. Named high-impact and tipping-point scenarios
5. Geographic impact atlas
6. Ecosystem responses
7. Economy, society, population and migration
8. Critical synthesis: robust findings, uncertainty and misuse
9. Interpretive synthesis: scenarios as narrative infrastructure
10. Numbered academic reference list
Appendix: User prompts related to this report
1. How climate scenarios should be read
A climate scenario is an internally coherent “if-then” construction. It combines assumptions about population, economic development, energy, land use, technology, policy and emissions, then asks what climate and social consequences follow. A scenario can be physically possible without being politically likely, and it can remain analytically useful even when it is not the central expectation. For this reason, scenario names must not be confused with forecasts, targets or probabilities.
• Forcing pathway: the atmospheric energy imbalance reached under a pathway, expressed in watts per square metre by 2100 in the RCP and SSP labels.
• Socioeconomic pathway: a narrative about population, inequality, institutions, technology, urbanisation and international cooperation.
• Projection: a modelled response conditional on a scenario; it is not a prediction that the scenario will occur.
• Overshoot: warming temporarily exceeds a target before returning through net-negative emissions; some impacts may remain irreversible even after temperature declines.
• Tipping point: a threshold after which a system can reorganise through self-reinforcing feedbacks. Crossing a threshold may commit a long transition rather than cause an instantaneous global event.
• Low-likelihood, high-impact outcome: an outcome outside the central range that remains relevant for risk management because consequences would be extreme.
Academic source links: Next-generation scenario framework | Shared Socioeconomic Pathways | Tipping elements and climate-economic shocks
References: [1], 747-756; [3], 387-400; [17], 346-372.
2. Scenario genealogy: IS92, SRES, RCPs and SSPs
Period / framework | Principal authors or institution | What it describes | Critical status |
1992 – IS92 | IPCC; Leggett et al. | Six emissions scenarios based on population, growth, energy and land-use assumptions. | Historically important but replaced as modelling and socioeconomic assumptions evolved. |
2000 – SRES | IPCC; Nakicenovic and Swart, eds. | Four scenario families: A1, A2, B1 and B2. No explicit additional climate policy. | Widely used in AR3/AR4; criticised when treated as probability-ranked forecasts. |
2010-2011 – RCPs | Moss et al.; van Vuuren et al. | Four concentration and radiative-forcing pathways: RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5. | Useful climate inputs, but they do not themselves specify one socioeconomic history. |
2014-2017 – SSPs | O’Neill et al.; Riahi et al. | Five socioeconomic narratives combined with forcing levels, for example SSP2-4.5. | Current standard. The same forcing can arise through different social worlds and policy choices. |
2021 onward – AR6 assessed pathways | IPCC Working Groups I-III | Five illustrative pathways from SSP1-1.9 to SSP5-8.5 plus mitigation and overshoot pathways. | Assessment ranges are conditional. The IPCC does not assign a probability to each illustrative scenario. |
Academic source links: The next generation of scenarios | RCP overview | The roads ahead | SSP emissions overview
References: [1], 747-756; [2], 5-31; [4], 169-180; [5], 153-168.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report | IPCC Data Distribution Centre – scenarios
3. Formal pathway catalogue
3.1 “Paris-compatible 1.5°C” – SSP1-1.9
Popular name | 1.5°C pathway; sustainability pathway; very low emissions. |
Authors / date | SSP architecture: O’Neill et al., 2014 and 2017; quantified pathway literature: Riahi et al., 2017; assessed by IPCC AR6, 2021-2023. |
Publication details | SSP1 combines low challenges to mitigation and adaptation with radiative forcing near 1.9 W/m² in 2100. |
Indicative warming | IPCC best estimate about 1.4°C in 2081-2100 relative to 1850-1900; likely range about 1.0-1.8°C. Temporary exceedance remains possible. |
Geographic pattern | Strong Arctic amplification persists; mountain and polar ice continue to shrink; heat and heavy precipitation rise in many regions, but risks are materially lower than at 2°C and above. |
Ecosystems | Substantial losses remain, especially for warm-water coral reefs, alpine species and Arctic systems. Extinction and biome-shift risks are reduced but not eliminated. |
Society and economy | Lower damages and adaptation burdens than all higher pathways; rapid capital turnover, energy transition, land-use change and international cooperation are required. |
Scientific reflection | Physically achievable in modelled pathways, but implementation is exceptionally demanding. Many pathways rely on carbon dioxide removal; feasibility, land competition and governance constrain scale. |
Academic source links: Differential impacts at 1.5°C and 2°C | SSP narratives
References: [4], 169-180; [8], 327-351.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
3.2 “Well below 2°C” – SSP1-2.6
Popular name | Low-emissions pathway; approximately 2°C-compatible pathway. |
Authors / date | Moss et al., 2010; van Vuuren et al., 2011; O’Neill et al., 2014; IPCC AR6. |
Publication details | SSP1 socioeconomic conditions combined with forcing near 2.6 W/m² in 2100. |
Indicative warming | IPCC best estimate about 1.8°C in 2081-2100; likely range about 1.3-2.4°C. |
Geographic pattern | More frequent severe heat and heavy rainfall, intensifying drought in already dry subtropical regions, continued glacier retreat and rising coastal flood risk. |
Ecosystems | Marked contraction of climate-sensitive ranges, severe coral loss and increasing forest and fire stress. Risks rise nonlinearly between 1.5°C and 2°C. |
Society and economy | Adaptation remains possible in many sectors but increasingly costly. Food, health and water impacts concentrate in low-latitude and lower-income regions. |
Scientific reflection | A central mitigation benchmark, not a safe boundary. Long-term sea-level rise and some irreversible ecosystem losses continue even if temperature stabilises. |
Academic source links: RCP overview | Differential climate impacts
References: [2], 5-31; [8], 327-351.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
3.3 “Current pledges” – full NDC implementation
Popular name | Pledges-and-targets pathway; NDC scenario. |
Authors / date | UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025; national governments through submitted Nationally Determined Contributions. |
Publication details | Institutional aggregation of stated 2030/2035 pledges and longer-term targets; not a single model storyline. |
Indicative warming | UNEP’s 2025 assessment placed full NDC implementation around 2.3-2.5°C over the century. |
Geographic pattern | Severe heat, hydrological stress and coastal risk become widespread; high mountain Asia, the Mediterranean, small islands, deltas and the Arctic face especially rapid change. |
Ecosystems | Very high risk for coral reefs, accelerating species redistribution, forest dieback risk and continued large-scale glacier loss. |
Society and economy | Larger health, infrastructure, food and adaptation costs; displacement pressures increase, but outcomes remain strongly mediated by governance and inequality. |
Scientific reflection | A policy snapshot rather than a stable scenario. It depends on implementation credibility, accounting rules, post-2035 action and the treatment of net-zero commitments. |
Academic source links: SSP framework | Climate impacts at policy-relevant limits
References: [3], 387-400; [8], 327-351.
Primary / institutional evidence links: UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025
3.4 “Current policies” – approximately 2.6-2.8°C
Popular name | Policies-in-place trajectory; present-policy baseline. |
Authors / date | UNEP and Climate Action Tracker, 2025. |
Publication details | Model ensembles that extrapolate implemented policies, rather than all announced pledges. |
Indicative warming | Approximately 2.6°C in Climate Action Tracker and 2.8°C in UNEP’s 2025 assessment; methodological differences explain part of the range. |
Geographic pattern | Dangerous heat expands across tropical and subtropical regions; drought and wildfire risks intensify around the Mediterranean and other drylands; sea-level and flood exposure rise globally. |
Ecosystems | High risk of extensive coral-reef functional collapse, biome shifts, biodiversity loss and loss of low-elevation glaciers. |
Society and economy | Labour productivity, mortality, crop reliability and insurance systems are increasingly stressed; losses are regressive across and within countries. |
Scientific reflection | This is the most policy-relevant near-term benchmark, but it is not destiny. Policy updates, technology costs, conflict, economic change and feedbacks can move the trajectory. |
Academic source links: Economic production and temperature | Global mortality consequences
References: [37], 235-239; [39], 2037-2105.
Primary / institutional evidence links: UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 | Climate Action Tracker – global emissions pathways
3.5 “Middle of the Road” – SSP2-4.5
Popular name | Middle of the Road; intermediate-emissions scenario. |
Authors / date | O’Neill et al., 2017; Riahi et al., 2017; IPCC AR6. |
Publication details | Uneven development, incomplete cooperation and gradual technological progress; forcing near 4.5 W/m² in 2100. |
Indicative warming | IPCC best estimate about 2.7°C in 2081-2100; likely range about 2.1-3.5°C. |
Geographic pattern | Substantial regional drying in the Mediterranean, southwestern North America, southern Africa and parts of Australia; stronger monsoonal rainfall and flood extremes elsewhere. |
Ecosystems | Broad redistribution of marine and terrestrial species, increasing extinction risk, severe glacier loss, recurring mass coral bleaching and greater fire disturbance. |
Society and economy | Persistent adaptation deficits, higher food-price volatility, growing heat mortality, infrastructure losses and internal migration. |
Scientific reflection | Often used as an “intermediate” reference, but it is not a probability-weighted median. It bundles one socioeconomic narrative with one forcing level. |
Academic source links: The roads ahead | SSP emissions implications | Biodiversity redistribution
References: [4], 169-180; [5], 153-168; [34], eaai9214.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
3.6 “Regional Rivalry / Rocky Road” – SSP3-7.0
Popular name | Regional Rivalry; “Rocky Road”; high-emissions pathway. |
Authors / date | O’Neill et al., 2017; Riahi et al., 2017; IPCC AR6. |
Publication details | Fragmented geopolitics, weak institutions, slow technological transfer, high population growth in vulnerable regions and forcing near 7.0 W/m². |
Indicative warming | IPCC best estimate about 3.6°C in 2081-2100; likely range about 2.8-4.6°C. |
Geographic pattern | Extreme heat becomes a major constraint in tropical and subtropical regions; major loss of snow and glaciers; escalating drought, flood, wildfire and coastal hazards. |
Ecosystems | Large-scale biome shifts, high extinction risk, severe ocean ecosystem disruption and growing probability of crossing multiple tipping thresholds. |
Society and economy | Food and water shocks interact with weak cooperation; adaptation and disaster recovery capacity diverge sharply; displacement and immobility coexist. |
Scientific reflection | A coherent high-challenge scenario, not a current-policies forecast. Its social fragmentation is as important as its emissions level in determining human harm. |
Academic source links: SSP narratives | Climate as a conflict risk factor | Resource-constrained immobility
References: [4], 169-180; [40], 193-197; [42], 634-641.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
3.7 “Fossil-fuelled Development / Taking the Highway” – SSP5-8.5
Popular name | Fossil-fuelled Development; “Taking the Highway”; very high emissions; high-end stress test. |
Authors / date | O’Neill et al., 2017; Riahi et al., 2017; IPCC AR6. |
Publication details | Rapid fossil-intensive growth, high energy demand and forcing near 8.5 W/m² in 2100. |
Indicative warming | IPCC best estimate about 4.4°C in 2081-2100; likely range about 3.3-5.7°C. |
Geographic pattern | Profound heat and hydrological extremes, near-total loss of many low-latitude and low-elevation glaciers, extensive coastal transformation and very high compound-event risk. |
Ecosystems | Widespread ecosystem reorganisation, very high extinction risk, extensive coral loss, large carbon-cycle feedbacks and stronger tipping interactions. |
Society and economy | Potentially systemic damage to food systems, health, finance, cities and states; adaptation limits become widespread, especially where poverty and conflict coincide. |
Scientific reflection | Misleading when labelled the inevitable “business as usual”. Hausfather and Peters argue it is implausible as a central baseline; Schwalm and colleagues defend its use for cumulative-emissions tracking and risk stress-testing. Its value is conditional, not predictive. |
Academic source links: Business-as-usual critique | RCP8.5 defence | SSP emissions overview
References: [5], 153-168; [6], 618-620; [7], 19656-19657.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
3.8 “Overshoot and return”
Popular name | Temperature overshoot; peak-and-decline; net-negative pathway. |
Authors / date | Mitigation scenario community; formalised in IPCC pathways; critical treatments by Geden and Löschel, 2017, and later tipping research. |
Publication details | Global temperature exceeds 1.5°C or 2°C, then declines through sustained net-negative CO2 emissions. |
Indicative warming | No single trajectory: the peak height, duration above target and eventual stabilisation level all matter. |
Geographic pattern | Peak warming controls extreme heat and glacier loss; delayed sea-level rise and ice-sheet responses continue after global temperature declines. |
Ecosystems | Some systems may recover partially; lost species, degraded coral reefs, committed ice loss and threshold crossings may not reverse on human timescales. |
Society and economy | Defers mitigation while creating reliance on future removal, land, energy and institutions; intergenerational and distributive risks are large. |
Scientific reflection | Overshoot is not equivalent to temporarily harmless exceedance. It can increase tipping-cascade risk and assumes carbon-removal capacities that remain uncertain at required scale. |
Academic source links: Limits for overshoot targets | Greenland overshoot study | Interacting tipping elements
References: [9], 881-882; [13], 601-619; [23], 528-536.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
4. Named high-impact and tipping-point scenarios
Tipping-point scenarios differ from emissions pathways. They concern the response of particular Earth-system components and the possibility that feedbacks produce nonlinear or self-sustaining change. Threshold estimates are ranges, and the time between threshold crossing and full system transition may be decades, centuries or millennia.
4.1 “Hothouse Earth”
Popular name | Hothouse Earth; planetary threshold hypothesis. |
Authors / date | Will Steffen and fifteen co-authors, 2018. |
Publication details | “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” PNAS 115, no. 33: 8252-8259. |
Core thesis | Human warming could activate reinforcing feedbacks that steer the Earth System away from Holocene-like conditions, even after direct emissions decline. |
Geographic effects | Amplified polar warming, long-term sea-level rise, changing monsoons and drylands, and widespread movement of climate zones. |
Ecosystem effects | Loss of carbon sinks, biome reorganisation and feedbacks involving ice, forests, soils and ocean circulation. |
Social effects | Systemic rather than sectoral risk: food, water, settlement and governance shocks can interact across regions. |
Scientific reflection | Influential risk hypothesis, not a forecast and not evidence for one precisely located global cliff. The strength, timing and interaction of feedbacks remain uncertain. |
Academic source links: Hothouse Earth paper | Tipping-points review
References: [11], 8252-8259; [16], 30-38.
4.2 “Tipping cascades / climate dominoes”
Popular name | Tipping cascade; climate domino effect. |
Authors / date | Wunderling et al., 2021; Armstrong McKay et al., 2022. |
Publication details | Network-model and synthesis studies of interacting cryosphere, circulation and biosphere elements. |
Core thesis | Crossing one threshold can alter the forcing on another, raising the possibility of cascades under sustained or overshooting warming. |
Geographic effects | Connections can link Greenland melt, AMOC weakening, West Antarctic change and Amazon rainfall, but pathways are model-dependent. |
Ecosystem effects | Compound stresses can accelerate forest, ocean and cryosphere transitions beyond risks inferred from isolated systems. |
Social effects | Cascades complicate insurance, infrastructure planning and economic assessment because shocks are correlated rather than independent. |
Scientific reflection | Interactions are physically plausible and increasingly studied, but simplified network models do not establish a single deterministic chain reaction. |
Academic source links: Interacting tipping elements | Multiple tipping points above 1.5°C | Integrated climate-economic shocks
References: [13], 601-619; [14], eabn7950; [17], 346-372.
4.3 “Climate Endgame”
Popular name | Climate Endgame; catastrophic climate-risk research agenda. |
Authors / date | Luke Kemp and ten co-authors, 2022. |
Publication details | PNAS 119, no. 34, e2108146119. |
Core thesis | Extreme warming, cascading failures and societal fragility deserve explicit study, including outcomes beyond standard cost-benefit ranges. |
Geographic effects | Particular concern where extreme heat overlaps with dense populations, fragile states, food insecurity and nuclear or biological risks. |
Ecosystem effects | Potential simultaneous failure of multiple ecological services rather than one isolated impact. |
Social effects | Authors examine pathways toward mass mortality, political instability or civilisational collapse as risk questions. |
Scientific reflection | A call for research, not a probability estimate. Critics warn against overstating poorly quantified extinction or collapse claims; the authors reply that neglected tail risks are legitimate objects of analysis. |
Academic source links: Climate Endgame | Critical response
References: [15], e2108146119; [49], e2214347119.
4.4 “AMOC collapse”
Popular name | Atlantic circulation collapse; Gulf Stream collapse in popular media, though the Gulf Stream itself is not identical to the AMOC. |
Authors / date | Early-warning studies by Boers, 2021; Ditlevsen and Ditlevsen, 2023; van Westen et al., 2024; model assessment by Baker et al., 2025. |
Publication details | Observation-based indicators, idealised models and multi-model tests of Atlantic overturning resilience. |
Core thesis | Warming and freshwater input weaken deep-water formation; beyond a threshold the overturning circulation could shift to a much weaker state. |
Geographic effects | North Atlantic cooling relative to global trends, altered European weather, shifts in tropical rain belts and monsoons, regional sea-level rise and marine ecosystem changes. |
Ecosystem effects | Changes in oxygen, nutrients, productivity and heat distribution across Atlantic ecosystems. |
Social effects | Risks to European agriculture and energy demand, Atlantic fisheries, coastal infrastructure and tropical rainfall-dependent populations. |
Scientific reflection | Weakening is a robust projection; the timing of collapse is contested. Ditlevsen’s statistical window drew strong methodological debate. Baker et al. found complete twenty-first-century collapse unlikely across 34 models, while van Westen et al. demonstrated a physically based warning signal in a model. |
Academic source links: Observation-based warning signals | Forthcoming-collapse warning | Physics-based warning signal | Continued overturning in models
References: [18], 680-688; [19], 4254; [20], eadk1189; [21], 987-994.
4.5 “Greenland ice-sheet tipping”
Popular name | Greenland threshold; self-sustained ice-sheet loss. |
Authors / date | Robinson, Calov and Ganopolski, 2012; Bochow et al., 2023. |
Publication details | Ice-sheet modelling of multiple stable states, thresholds and overshoot. |
Core thesis | Melt lowers the ice surface into warmer air, reinforcing loss. Crossing a threshold can commit large long-term sea-level rise. |
Geographic effects | Global sea-level rise; strongest regional consequences for deltas, small islands and low-lying coastal cities; altered North Atlantic freshwater balance. |
Ecosystem effects | Loss of ice-associated habitats and changed fjord and ocean conditions. |
Social effects | Long-lived coastal adaptation, relocation, heritage loss and major infrastructure costs. |
Scientific reflection | Threshold estimates depend on models and may span roughly 1.5-3°C. Commitment unfolds over centuries to millennia, not as an instantaneous seven-metre rise. Rapid cooling after limited overshoot can reduce loss, but relying on reversibility is risky. |
Academic source links: Greenland multistability | Greenland overshoot
References: [22], 429-432; [23], 528-536.
4.6 “West Antarctic ice-sheet instability”
Popular name | Marine ice-sheet instability; marine ice-cliff instability. |
Authors / date | DeConto and Pollard, 2016; Edwards et al., 2019, among a wider glaciological literature. |
Publication details | Process-based modelling of ice shelves, grounding-line retreat and possible cliff failure. |
Core thesis | Ice grounded below sea level on a retrograde bed can retreat through self-reinforcing ocean-driven processes after buttressing shelves weaken. |
Geographic effects | Multi-century global sea-level rise with regionally uneven fingerprints; acute exposure for deltas, atolls and coastal megacities. |
Ecosystem effects | Major changes to Southern Ocean freshwater, sea ice, benthic habitats and nutrient systems. |
Social effects | Coastal protection, managed retreat, sovereign territory and insurance become intergenerational problems. |
Scientific reflection | Marine ice-sheet instability is well established conceptually; the speed and magnitude of marine ice-cliff failure remain debated. High-end twenty-first-century outcomes have low confidence but high planning relevance. |
Academic source links: Antarctic sea-level contribution | Revisiting marine ice-cliff instability
References: [24], 591-597; [25], 58-64.
4.7 “Amazon dieback / savannisation”
Popular name | Amazon dieback; Amazon tipping point; savannisation. |
Authors / date | Nobre et al., 2016; Boulton, Lenton and Boers, 2022. |
Publication details | Synthesis of warming, deforestation, fire and moisture-recycling risks; observational resilience indicators. |
Core thesis | Forest loss and warming can reduce evapotranspiration and rainfall, increasing drought, fire and further forest loss. |
Geographic effects | Strongest risk in southern and eastern Amazonia; consequences for rainfall across South America and global carbon balance. |
Ecosystem effects | Transition toward more open and fire-prone vegetation, biodiversity loss and carbon release. |
Social effects | Threats to Indigenous territories, hydropower, agriculture, health, river transport and regional rainfall security. |
Scientific reflection | There is no single universally accepted threshold. Deforestation, fire management, CO2 fertilisation and spatial heterogeneity complicate projections; regional degradation can precede basin-wide transition. |
Academic source links: Amazon development and risk | Observed resilience loss
References: [26], 271-278; [27], 10759-10768.
4.8 “Permafrost carbon feedback”
Popular name | Permafrost thaw feedback; misleadingly called a “methane bomb” in some media. |
Authors / date | Schuur et al., 2015, with continuing Earth-system modelling. |
Publication details | Synthesis of carbon stocks, thaw processes, CO2 and methane release. |
Core thesis | Warming thaws frozen soils and exposes organic carbon to decomposition, adding greenhouse gases and amplifying warming. |
Geographic effects | Arctic and sub-Arctic landscapes; infrastructure damage, thermokarst, erosion and altered hydrology. |
Ecosystem effects | Wetland expansion or drainage, vegetation shifts, wildfire interactions and changes in freshwater and coastal carbon fluxes. |
Social effects | Damage to roads, buildings and pipelines; risks to Indigenous communities, health and food systems. |
Scientific reflection | A significant amplifying feedback, but not a single explosive threshold that makes mitigation futile. Magnitude and methane/CO2 balance remain uncertain; emissions scale with warming. |
Academic source links: Permafrost carbon feedback | Tipping-points research outlook
References: [16], 30-38; [28], 171-179.
4.9 “Coral-reef functional collapse”
Popular name | Mass coral bleaching; reef collapse. |
Authors / date | Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007; Hughes et al., 2017; assessed in IPCC special reports. |
Publication details | Experimental, observational and global analyses of thermal stress, bleaching and acidification. |
Core thesis | Repeated marine heatwaves outpace recovery; ocean acidification weakens calcification and ecological function. |
Geographic effects | Tropical reef regions, with major exposure in small islands, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. |
Ecosystem effects | Loss of structural complexity, biodiversity, nursery habitat and coastal protection. |
Social effects | Impacts on fisheries, tourism, cultural identity, nutrition and storm protection. |
Scientific reflection | Among the best-established low-threshold climate risks. Local management improves resilience but cannot compensate for continued global warming. “Collapse” varies by reef and function rather than occurring synchronously worldwide. |
Academic source links: Coral reefs under rapid change | Recurrent mass bleaching
References: [29], 1737-1742; [30], 373-377.
4.10 “Runaway greenhouse / Venus syndrome”
Popular name | Runaway greenhouse; “Venus syndrome”. |
Authors / date | Physical limits analysed by Goldblatt and Watson, 2012, and Goldblatt et al., 2013; popularised in stronger forms outside the literature. |
Publication details | Planetary climate studies of radiation limits and water-vapour feedback. |
Core thesis | At sufficiently high solar or greenhouse forcing, outgoing longwave radiation can reach a limit, allowing oceans to evaporate and warming to become self-sustaining. |
Geographic effects | A true runaway is a planetary state, not a regional impact scenario. |
Ecosystem effects | Would be incompatible with present ecosystems. |
Social effects | Civilisation and human survival would be impossible in a true runaway state. |
Scientific reflection | Not a plausible result of anthropogenic fossil-fuel emissions on present-day Earth. It must not be confused with “Hothouse Earth”, severe high-end warming, or ordinary water-vapour feedback. Its inclusion here is corrective because it circulates as a popular but scientifically unsupported near-term prognosis. |
Academic source links: Runaway greenhouse review | Radiation limit study
References: [31], 4197-4216; [32], 661-667.
5. Geographic impact atlas
Regional outcomes depend on warming level, exposure, adaptive capacity and interacting non-climatic pressures. The table indicates robust directions of change rather than deterministic local forecasts.
Region | Principal prognosis | Critical qualification |
Arctic and sub-Arctic | Fastest warming; declining summer sea ice, permafrost thaw, fire, coastal erosion and infrastructure damage. Shipping and extraction may expand even as ecosystems and livelihoods destabilise. | The magnitude scales strongly with cumulative CO2; local impacts are heterogeneous. |
High mountains and glacier-fed basins | Shrinking glaciers, altered seasonality of runoff, initial meltwater increase followed by declining dry-season supply, slope instability and loss of snow tourism. | Peak-water timing differs by basin; monsoon and groundwater can dominate some regions. |
Small islands, atolls and low deltas | Sea-level rise, salinisation, erosion, flooding and compound cyclone risk; threats to land, freshwater, heritage and sovereignty. | Habitability depends on adaptation, sediment, reefs, finance and political rights, not sea level alone. |
Mediterranean and Middle East / North Africa | Hotter extremes, drying, wildfire, water scarcity and crop stress; heat exposure increasingly constrains outdoor labour. | Rainfall projections have local uncertainty, but warming and evaporative demand are robust. |
South Asia | Dangerous humid heat, monsoon extremes, glacier and snow changes, river flooding and coastal exposure in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta. | Population exposure is high; irrigation, urbanisation and air pollution interact with climate. |
Sub-Saharan Africa | Heat, drought and flood risks affect rain-fed farming, pastoral systems, health and hydropower; adaptation finance is a central determinant. | Regional rainfall uncertainty is high; vulnerability is strongly shaped by development and conflict. |
Amazon and tropical South America | Drought, fire and forest degradation, changing rainfall recycling and river extremes. | Deforestation and land management can accelerate or reduce climate-driven risk. |
North Atlantic and Europe | Heatwaves, floods, drought and coastal rise; AMOC weakening could offset some North Atlantic warming while disrupting rainfall, sea level and marine systems. | A local cooling pattern would not mean global warming had stopped. |
Antarctica and Southern Ocean | Ice-shelf thinning, grounding-line retreat, ocean warming and ecosystem change; long-term global sea-level commitment. | Twenty-first-century rates depend on poorly constrained ice dynamics. |
Cities worldwide | Urban heat, intense rainfall, coastal flooding, energy and water stress, disease and unequal exposure concentrated in informal settlements. | Adaptation can sharply reduce mortality and damage, but residual risk and finance gaps grow with warming. |
Academic source links: Every increase in temperature matters for glaciers | Observed Arctic sea-ice loss | Global risk of deadly heat | AMOC model assessment
References: [21], 987-994; [33], 78-83; [36], 747-750; [48], 501-506.
Primary / institutional evidence links: IPCC AR6 Working Group II | IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere
6. Ecosystem responses
System | Likely response as warming rises | Thresholds / limits |
Cryosphere | Accelerating glacier and ice-sheet mass loss, shorter snow seasons, permafrost thaw and declining Arctic sea ice. | Small glaciers can disappear this century; large ice sheets respond over centuries but may cross thresholds earlier. |
Terrestrial biodiversity | Poleward and upslope range shifts, altered phenology, novel communities, local extirpations and rising extinction risk. | Fragmented habitats and rapid rates of change limit migration and adaptation. |
Forests | Heat and drought stress, pest outbreaks, fire and mortality; some high-latitude growth gains are possible. | Amazon and boreal systems contain feedbacks, but regional outcomes depend on land use and disturbance. |
Freshwater systems | Warmer water, lower oxygen, altered flows and flood/drought regimes; species turnover and water-quality deterioration. | Glacier-fed systems face a transition from increased melt to reduced long-term supply. |
Oceans | Warming, acidification, deoxygenation, stratification and shifting productivity and fisheries. | Coral reefs and polar systems show low thresholds and limited adaptation at high warming. |
Coasts and wetlands | Erosion, salinity intrusion, wetland drowning and habitat compression where migration is blocked. | Sediment supply and accommodation space determine whether wetlands can keep pace with sea-level rise. |
Ecosystem services | Less reliable pollination, fisheries, carbon storage, flood protection and cultural services; some services move geographically. | Losses are often nonlinear and unequally distributed; monetary valuation captures only part of them. |
Academic source links: Biodiversity redistribution | Accelerating extinction risk | Global glacier change | Permafrost carbon feedback | Coral bleaching
References: [28], 171-179; [30], 373-377; [33], 78-83; [34], eaai9214; [35], 571-573.
7. Economy, society, population and migration
7.1 Economic production, infrastructure and inequality
Economic estimates differ because models represent adaptation, persistence, conflict, non-market losses, tipping points and distribution in different ways. The robust conclusion is directional: heat and extremes reduce labour productivity, damage capital, raise mortality and adaptation costs, and deepen inequality, especially in hot and lower-income regions. Precise global GDP percentages are not stable facts. A prominent 2024 Nature estimate of a 19 per cent near-term income reduction was retracted in 2025 after data-processing corrections, illustrating the need to distinguish a headline number from the wider evidence base.
Academic source links: Temperature and economic production | Meta-analysis of climate damages | Warming and global inequality
References: [37], 235-239; [38], 197-225; [44], 9808-9813.
Primary / institutional evidence links: Retraction note: The economic commitment of climate change
7.2 Health, food and water
• Heat mortality rises strongly without adaptation; air conditioning, public health, urban design and income produce large differences in outcomes.
• Crop risks increase through heat, drought, flood, pests and simultaneous failures in major producing regions; CO2 fertilisation does not offset nutritional and extreme-event risks.
• Water insecurity grows through altered precipitation, evaporative demand, glacier retreat, salinisation and damaged infrastructure.
• Infectious disease ranges, smoke exposure, malnutrition and mental-health burdens change with climate and social conditions.
Academic source links: Global mortality consequences | Agricultural risks | Deadly heat
References: [39], 2037-2105; [47], 3268-3273; [48], 501-506.
7.3 Population change, migration and immobility
Climate does not produce a single class of “climate refugees”. It alters hazards and livelihoods within migration systems shaped by income, networks, borders, land tenure, conflict and policy. Most observed climate-related movement is internal and often temporary. Sea-level rise can drive durable relocation, while drought and heat may either increase migration or reduce it by destroying the resources required to move. The poorest can become trapped in high-risk places. Population projections in SSPs are assumptions used to explore futures, not estimates of deaths or displacement caused by climate alone.
Mechanism | Possible mobility outcome | Why forecasts vary |
Sudden disaster | Evacuation, short-distance displacement, repeated return or permanent relocation. | Recovery aid, housing, insurance and legal status determine duration. |
Drought and crop loss | Rural-urban migration, livelihood diversification, pastoral movement or immobility. | Income effects can finance movement or remove the capacity to move. |
Sea-level rise and erosion | Managed retreat, household relocation, urban resettlement and cross-border claims in exceptional cases. | Timing depends on protection, land subsidence, storms, salinisation and governance. |
Extreme heat | Seasonal labour shifts, urban out-migration, changed work hours and mortality. | Adaptation, cooling, employment and housing shape whether people move. |
Conflict interaction | Climate can amplify existing resource and governance stresses. | The climate contribution is generally smaller than political, economic and institutional drivers. |
Academic source links: Migration synthesis | Resource-constrained immobility | Drought and internal migration | Sea-level-rise migration | Climate as conflict risk
References: [40], 193-197; [41], 281-300; [42], 634-641; [43], 1245-1253; [45], 321-325.
7.4 Governance, conflict and systemic risk
Climate change is best understood as a risk multiplier, not an autonomous cause of war or state failure. Strong institutions, redistribution, peacebuilding and public services reduce harm; fragmentation and authoritarian exclusion increase it. At higher warming, simultaneous harvest failures, energy shortages, disasters, disease and financial losses create correlated shocks that conventional sector-by-sector planning underestimates. Catastrophic-risk scholarship asks whether these interactions could exceed national and international response capacity, but evidence does not support a universal deterministic sequence from warming to civilisational collapse.
Academic source links: Climate and armed conflict | Climate Endgame | Critical response on catastrophic risk
References: [15], e2108146119; [40], 193-197; [49], e2214347119.
8. Critical synthesis: robust findings, uncertainty and misuse
Claim | Assessment | Editorial conclusion |
“There is one scientifically predicted future.” | False. Models assess conditional pathways and probability ranges; policy and society help select among them. | Always state assumptions and avoid presenting an SSP as a forecast. |
“Current policy means SSP5-8.5.” | Generally misleading. Current-policy estimates in 2025 were nearer 2.6-2.8°C, although uncertainty and tail risks remain. | Use SSP5-8.5 as a high-end stress test, not a neutral default. |
“Crossing a tipping point causes instant planetary collapse.” | Usually false. Threshold crossing can commit a transition whose completion may take decades to millennia. | Separate threshold, transition rate, final magnitude and reversibility. |
“All tipping points are equally established.” | False. Coral decline and glacier loss are directly observed; exact thresholds for AMOC, Amazon and ice sheets are more uncertain. | Report confidence element by element. |
“Overshoot can simply be reversed later.” | Misleading. Temperature can decline, but species loss, sea-level commitment and some tipping processes may not reverse. | Treat peak height and duration as distinct risks. |
“Permafrost makes mitigation pointless.” | False. Permafrost amplifies warming, but emissions scale with warming and do not remove the benefits of mitigation. | Reject fatalistic “methane bomb” narratives. |
“Climate migration can be summarised by one global number.” | Unsupported. Movement is multi-causal, mostly internal, and includes involuntary immobility. | Use region-, timescale- and policy-specific evidence. |
“Runaway greenhouse is a plausible human-caused 21st-century scenario.” | False under established planetary-energy calculations. | Distinguish Venus-like runaway from severe high-end warming and Hothouse Earth. |
“Uncertainty is a reason for delay.” | False as risk logic. Uncertainty includes worse-than-central outcomes and irreversible change. | Use uncertainty to widen precaution and stress-testing, not to erase action. |
Academic source links: Business-as-usual critique | Tipping-points outlook | Tipping elements and economic shocks | Migration synthesis | Runaway greenhouse review
References: [6], 618-620; [16], 30-38; [17], 346-372; [31], 4197-4216; [41], 281-300.
9. Interpretive synthesis: scenarios as narrative infrastructure
Within The Sunshine Find, climate scenarios are not merely technical outputs. They are narrative infrastructures that organise attention, investment, fear, denial, adaptation and action. Their graphs and temperature bands translate an open political future into apparently discrete routes. This is productive when assumptions remain visible; it becomes ideological when a conditional pathway is presented as destiny, when a high-end stress test is used as spectacle without probability, or when uncertainty is mobilised to justify delay.
The scenario archive connects directly to Countdown, where emissions are rendered as a real-time numerical trajectory, and to Discovery of Global Warming, which historicises the instruments and institutions that made planetary change legible. Glacier Express, Gaze, Rape and Assault, SUVization and Drill, Baby, Drill! represent mobility, tourism and extraction systems that help determine which pathway is followed. Thirst, Nations, Expedition Artist and Future translate projections into water stress, territorial loss, Kiribati and migration narratives. Container, Necklace / Ötzi and Memory show the cryosphere as an unstable archive: warming destroys ice while exposing historical material, giving glacial archaeology its paradoxical evidentiary condition.
The later objects – Sunshine, ELF Timeline, No Sprawl and Sabotage – concern the political consequences of competing climate narratives. Scientific scenarios do not prescribe sabotage or any particular activism. They do, however, shape claims of urgency, proportionality and legitimacy. The archive should therefore preserve the difference between assessment, interpretation and parafiction: tipping points are scientific risk concepts; “catastrophe theatre” is a cultural mode of displaying them; and Sunshine’s imagined programme is the project’s fictional-political layer.
Primary / institutional evidence used for current assessed ranges
United Nations Environment Programme. Emissions Gap Report 2025.
Climate Action Tracker. Global Emissions Pathways. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global Warming of 1.5°C. 2018.
10. Numbered academic reference list
Chicago bibliography style. The numbered list contains only verified scholarly journal articles. Institutional assessments are listed separately above.
1. Moss, Richard H., et al. “The Next Generation of Scenarios for Climate Change Research and Assessment.” Nature 463 (2010): 747-756. DOI / stable source
2. van Vuuren, Detlef P., et al. “The Representative Concentration Pathways: An Overview.” Climatic Change 109, nos. 1-2 (2011): 5-31. DOI / stable source
3. O’Neill, Brian C., et al. “A New Scenario Framework for Climate Change Research: The Concept of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways.” Climatic Change 122 (2014): 387-400. DOI / stable source
4. O’Neill, Brian C., et al. “The Roads Ahead: Narratives for Shared Socioeconomic Pathways Describing World Futures in the 21st Century.” Global Environmental Change 42 (2017): 169-180. DOI / stable source
5. Riahi, Keywan, et al. “The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and Their Energy, Land Use, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Implications: An Overview.” Global Environmental Change 42 (2017): 153-168. DOI / stable source
6. Hausfather, Zeke, and Glen P. Peters. “Emissions – the ‘Business as Usual’ Story Is Misleading.” Nature 577 (2020): 618-620. DOI / stable source
7. Schwalm, Christopher R., Spencer Glendon, and Philip B. Duffy. “RCP8.5 Tracks Cumulative CO2 Emissions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 33 (2020): 19656-19657. DOI / stable source
8. Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich, et al. “Differential Climate Impacts for Policy-Relevant Limits to Global Warming: The Case of 1.5°C and 2°C.” Earth System Dynamics 7 (2016): 327-351. DOI / stable source
9. Geden, Oliver, and Andreas Löschel. “Define Limits for Temperature Overshoot Targets.” Nature Geoscience 10 (2017): 881-882. DOI / stable source
10. Lenton, Timothy M., et al. “Tipping Elements in the Earth’s Climate System.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 6 (2008): 1786-1793. DOI / stable source
11. Steffen, Will, et al. “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 33 (2018): 8252-8259. DOI / stable source
12. Lenton, Timothy M., et al. “Climate Tipping Points – Too Risky to Bet Against.” Nature 575 (2019): 592-595. DOI / stable source
13. Wunderling, Nico, Jonathan F. Donges, Jürgen Kurths, and Ricarda Winkelmann. “Interacting Tipping Elements Increase Risk of Climate Domino Effects under Global Warming.” Earth System Dynamics 12 (2021): 601-619. DOI / stable source
14. Armstrong McKay, David I., et al. “Exceeding 1.5°C Global Warming Could Trigger Multiple Climate Tipping Points.” Science 377, no. 6611 (2022): eabn7950. DOI / stable source
15. Kemp, Luke, et al. “Climate Endgame: Exploring Catastrophic Climate Change Scenarios.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 34 (2022): e2108146119. DOI / stable source
16. Armstrong McKay, David I. “Two Decades of Climate Tipping Points Research: Progress and Outlook.” Dialogues on Climate Change 1, no. 1 (2024): 30-38. DOI / stable source
17. Kopp, Robert E., Rachael Shwom, Gernot Wagner, and Jiacan Yuan. “Tipping Elements and Climate-Economic Shocks: Pathways toward Integrated Assessment.” Earth’s Future 4, no. 8 (2016): 346-372. DOI / stable source
18. Boers, Niklas. “Observation-Based Early-Warning Signals for a Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.” Nature Climate Change 11 (2021): 680-688. DOI / stable source
19. Ditlevsen, Peter, and Susanne Ditlevsen. “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.” Nature Communications 14 (2023): 4254. DOI / stable source
20. van Westen, René M., Michael Kliphuis, and Henk A. Dijkstra. “Physics-Based Early Warning Signal Shows That AMOC Is on Tipping Course.” Science Advances 10 (2024): eadk1189. DOI / stable source
21. Baker, J. A., et al. “Continued Atlantic Overturning Circulation Even under Climate Extremes.” Nature 638 (2025): 987-994. DOI / stable source
22. Robinson, Alexander, Reinhard Calov, and Andrey Ganopolski. “Multistability and Critical Thresholds of the Greenland Ice Sheet.” Nature Climate Change 2 (2012): 429-432. DOI / stable source
23. Bochow, Nils, et al. “Overshooting the Critical Threshold for the Greenland Ice Sheet.” Nature 622 (2023): 528-536. DOI / stable source
24. DeConto, Robert M., and David Pollard. “Contribution of Antarctica to Past and Future Sea-Level Rise.” Nature 531 (2016): 591-597. DOI / stable source
25. Edwards, Tamsin L., et al. “Revisiting Antarctic Ice Loss due to Marine Ice-Cliff Instability.” Nature 566 (2019): 58-64. DOI / stable source
26. Boulton, Chris A., Timothy M. Lenton, and Niklas Boers. “Pronounced Loss of Amazon Rainforest Resilience since the Early 2000s.” Nature Climate Change 12 (2022): 271-278. DOI / stable source
27. Nobre, Carlos A., et al. “Land-Use and Climate Change Risks in the Amazon and the Need of a Novel Sustainable Development Paradigm.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 39 (2016): 10759-10768. DOI / stable source
28. Schuur, Edward A. G., et al. “Climate Change and the Permafrost Carbon Feedback.” Nature 520 (2015): 171-179. DOI / stable source
29. Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, et al. “Coral Reefs under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification.” Science 318, no. 5857 (2007): 1737-1742. DOI / stable source
30. Hughes, Terry P., et al. “Global Warming and Recurrent Mass Bleaching of Corals.” Nature 543 (2017): 373-377. DOI / stable source
31. Goldblatt, Colin, and Andrew J. Watson. “The Runaway Greenhouse: Implications for Future Climate Change, Geoengineering and Planetary Atmospheres.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 370 (2012): 4197-4216. DOI / stable source
32. Goldblatt, Colin, et al. “Low Simulated Radiation Limit for Runaway Greenhouse Climates.” Nature Geoscience 6 (2013): 661-667. DOI / stable source
33. Rounce, David R., et al. “Global Glacier Change in the 21st Century: Every Increase in Temperature Matters.” Science 379, no. 6627 (2023): 78-83. DOI / stable source
34. Pecl, Gretta T., et al. “Biodiversity Redistribution under Climate Change: Impacts on Ecosystems and Human Well-Being.” Science 355, no. 6332 (2017): eaai9214. DOI / stable source
35. Urban, Mark C. “Accelerating Extinction Risk from Climate Change.” Science 348, no. 6234 (2015): 571-573. DOI / stable source
36. Notz, Dirk, and Julienne Stroeve. “Observed Arctic Sea-Ice Loss Directly Follows Anthropogenic CO2 Emission.” Science 354, no. 6313 (2016): 747-750. DOI / stable source
37. Burke, Marshall, Solomon M. Hsiang, and Edward Miguel. “Global Non-Linear Effect of Temperature on Economic Production.” Nature 527 (2015): 235-239. DOI / stable source
38. Howard, Peter H., and Thomas Sterner. “Few and Not So Far Between: A Meta-analysis of Climate Damage Estimates.” Environmental and Resource Economics 68 (2017): 197-225. DOI / stable source
39. Carleton, Tamma, et al. “Valuing the Global Mortality Consequences of Climate Change Accounting for Adaptation Costs and Benefits.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 137, no. 4 (2022): 2037-2105. DOI / stable source
40. Mach, Katharine J., et al. “Climate as a Risk Factor for Armed Conflict.” Nature 571 (2019): 193-197. DOI / stable source
41. Kaczan, David J., and Jennifer Orgill-Meyer. “The Impact of Climate Change on Migration: A Synthesis of Recent Empirical Insights.” Climatic Change 158 (2020): 281-300. DOI / stable source
42. Benveniste, Hélène, Michael Oppenheimer, and Marc Fleurbaey. “Climate Change Increases Resource-Constrained International Immobility.” Nature Climate Change 12 (2022): 634-641. DOI / stable source
43. Hoffmann, Roman, et al. “Drought and Aridity Influence Internal Migration Worldwide.” Nature Climate Change 14 (2024): 1245-1253. DOI / stable source
44. Diffenbaugh, Noah S., and Marshall Burke. “Global Warming Has Increased Global Economic Inequality.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 20 (2019): 9808-9813. DOI / stable source
45. Hauer, Mathew E. “Migration Induced by Sea-Level Rise Could Reshape the US Population Landscape.” Nature Climate Change 7 (2017): 321-325. DOI / stable source
46. Cattaneo, Cristina, et al. “Human Migration in the Era of Climate Change.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 13, no. 2 (2019): 189-206. DOI / stable source
47. Rosenzweig, Cynthia, et al. “Assessing Agricultural Risks of Climate Change in the 21st Century in a Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 9 (2014): 3268-3273. DOI / stable source
48. Mora, Camilo, et al. “Global Risk of Deadly Heat.” Nature Climate Change 7 (2017): 501-506. DOI / stable source
49. Burgess, Matthew G., Roger Pielke Jr., and Justin Ritchie. “Catastrophic Climate Risks Should Be Neither Understated nor Overstated.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 42 (2022): e2214347119. DOI / stable source
Appendix: User prompts related to this report
Prompts are reproduced chronologically as a research-process record. Wording and numbering are retained.
1. There are different scenarios on how the global warming might evolve from now.
2. Make a research on these and compile a report that presents them in a structural form.
a) ‘popular name’ of the scenario
b) author/scientist, date
c) publication details
d) critical reflection of the scientific community
d) link to the thesys / or source that describes it
We are looking for the various prognoses on:
1. what geographical areas will be affected and how?
2. how the ecosystem will eventually react?
3. how it will affect the economy, the human societies, the population changes, the migration, etc.
4. Pay a special attention to tipping point theories
5. create an RTF according to the standards and criteria