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A team of scientists, led by Professor Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, has released the alarm in the journal 'Nature' with research that ensures that the planet may have already entered the point of "no return" of climate change The warning comes a week after the article backed by 11,000 scientists in the Bioscience magazine ensuring that the planet is in a state of "catastrophic emergency" and that the time available to reverse the situation is "short distance."

The study in 'Nature' ensures that more than half of the nine points of "climate inflection" on the planet, interconnected with each other, are especially active. Among them, the loss of ice in the Arctic, in Greenland and east and west of Antarctica, the melting of the 'permafrost' in Siberia, the fires of the boreal forest in Canada, the deforestation of more than 17% of the Amazon, the death of the coral reefs in the Pacific and the slowdown of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic.

"We may have already overcome the" critical "point capable of causing a cascade of changes and making the weather uncontrollable," says Tim Lenton, who emphasizes how the risk zone starts with an increase in temperatures between 1 and 2 degrees (and not 5 degrees, as was commonly accepted until now). It is estimated that the warming has already been 1.1 degrees from the pre-industrial era and that it could reach 1.5 degrees by 2040.

"We do not want to be alarmists, we simply verify the facts as they are," says Professor Lenton. "The issue of climate is, after all, a risk management problem. It must be considered a matter of common sense."

"The stability and resilience of our planet is in danger," warn the authors of the article in 'Nature', released in the prelude to the COP25 summit that will bring together representatives from more than 200 states in Madrid. "International action, and not just words, should reflect this emergency that we face before."

The rainforests, boreal forests and 'permafrost' are examples of "critical" points that, if crossed, could mean the release of greenhouse gases such as methane that would accelerate global warming. The collapse of ice sheets in Greenland, the Arctic and East and West Antarctica could cause a rise of several meters in sea level.

The authors warn that a reduction in emissions could in any case slow down the process. The recent Emission Gap report, sponsored by the UN, warns however that emissions have increased by an average of 1.5% per year over the last decade and that they would need to be reduced by 7.6% each year, by 2030, to avoid an increase in temperatures exceeding 1.5 degrees.

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