The Three Most Worrying Warning Signs Are Now Confirmed

Sit comfortably, and come and read this short summary of the report State of The Climate 2025which begins with: “ We are heading straight towards climate chaos. The planet’s vital indicators are bright red “. The tone is set immediately; this twelve-page text written by scientists from all backgrounds would almost make us not want to go any further, the rest resembles an autopsy report.

This document, published in the journal BioSciencetells us that of the 35 vital indicators of the Earth monitored, 25 reached record levels this year. When it comes to “ vital indicators “, we are referring to the constants that keep our environment habitable (ocean temperature, melting ice, concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, energy balance, etc.). Taken together, they tell one and the same story: global warming is now sufficiently advanced to disrupt, simultaneously, most of the major physical balances of the planet. Three major upheavals have been identified as being at the top of the list, because they are already responsible for part of the disruptions observed today on a planetary scale: ready for a little tour of our globe which is no longer running smoothly?

The parasol paradox: when cleaning the air fuels the furnace

This is undoubtedly the cruelest irony of this report: we have started to win the battle on air pollution, but it is a useless victory, which is causing us to lose the climate war. Since the first Industrial Revolution, we have rejected millions of tons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including sulfur dioxide (SO₂). Particularly via maritime transport and certain industrial activities (energy production, oil refining, metallurgy, heavy industry, etc.).

It was a health disaster, certainly, but these particles (aerosols) acted like a mirror, reflecting part of the solar radiation back into space before it hit the ground. By imposing cleaner standards, particularly for cargo fuels in 2020, we folded this toxic umbrella.

Without this filter, the heat from greenhouse gases now hits the Earth’s surface with incredible violence and the planet absorbs it without being able to send the excess back. Data from 2024 show that this reduction in aerosols has doubled the planet’s energy imbalance in less than twenty years. A double punishment: we breathe better, but we burn much fasterbecause the oceans now absorb this excess energy without any protection.

Carbon sinks running out of steam: when nature saturates

For several decades, we have benefited from a natural safety net: carbon sinks. Forests and soils absorb around 25% of our CO emissions₂ : sponges, which counterbalanced, in part, our excesses and the bad choices of the leaders of polluting countries. But the sponges are clogged. The report reveals a dizzying figure: in 2023, under the effect of record heat, the absorptive capacity of terrestrial ecosystems has fallen to near zero.

It is a purely biological regulation mechanism: during periods of high heat, plants close their pores (stomata) to avoid losing their water, which stops photosynthesis and therefore the absorption of CO₂. Heat also acts as a stimulant for soil microorganisms. The latter therefore decompose organic matter much more quickly and release more CO₂ while breathing, a bit like an engine revving under the influence of temperature.

The results are catastrophic: while the plant carbon pump stops, soil respiration accelerates. This phenomenon, coupled with fires whose intensity jumped by 370% in tropical areas in one year, has transformed our carbon sinks into emitters of carbon dioxide. We thus see Mother Nature continuously rejecting her own carbon stocks accumulated over millennia: warming self-powered by terrestrial biology.

Glaciers: collapse from the base

The Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets have already reached their point of no return. If, in the collective imagination, it is easier to imagine these glaciers as static blocks of ice that melt in the sun, this is a false idea from a geophysical point of view. Glaciers are neither more nor less than solid rivers, whose flow is exploding.

In order to fully understand this somewhat daring analogy, we must look below the surface of the water, at the anchor line. This is the point of contact where the glacier still weighs all its weight on the rocky base before becoming a floating platform. In a stable state, this contact with the rough rock creates colossal friction. This is the handbrake of the cap which prevents the billions of tons of ice stored on the continent from suddenly collapsing into the ocean.

According to the report, because ocean water has become too warm, it is now seeping beneath the base, beyond the anchor line, to eat away at the point of contact between ice and rock. In West Antarctica, notably for the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, the bedrock is inclined towards the interior of the continent. CThis is where instability becomes catastrophic : the more the glacier retreats, the more it exposes a deep and thick base to warm water. Archimedes’ thrust lifts the ice, friction disappears, and the glacier slides towards the sea, carried by its own weight. In Greenland, giants like the Jakobshavn glacier are losing their protective ice barriers, transforming these rivers of ice into conveyor belts launched towards the ocean abysses.

There is a nauseating indecency to watch our leaders parade in climate summits while everything in this data proves to us that the world as we knew it, no longer exists. We spent decades ignoring that our comfort rested on pillars of clay which we ourselves sawed. The carbon neutrality in 2050 is a joke in bad taste, a smokescreen for not admitting that the Earth machine is now out of control. It will survive us, one way or another (our beautiful planet has seen much worse than a few billionA wise man who devastate their environment). Which will certainly not be the case for our civilization; but let’s put the stone in the right place : we deserve (a little) for it to hit us in the temple, but it would be a mistake to subject this shock to those who have never had a hand in decision-making power.