Including the closely related term tipping.
… the possibility that with sustained high temperatures major elements of the Earth’s climate could be drastically altered. These ‘tipping points’ in our climate are less likely, but potentially much more dangerous. While known impacts from small temperature rises could be managed (although this will become increasingly expensive as temperatures increase), passing a tipping point could cause large…
… this would take a long time to happen, it is possible that the ice sheet would not be able to regrow after a certain amount of melting occurs. While such events are considered unlikely, they can’t be ruled out, even under relatively low temperature rises of less than 2˚C above the pre-industrial temperature. All indications are that, should we pass one of these tipping points, there would…