A recent study delving into our planet’s warming climate has sounded an alarming alert: Earth’s ecosystems could be hurtling toward collapse much sooner than previously estimated.

This research highlights that more than a fifth of the world’s critical tipping points, which include alarming events like the melting of Arctic permafrost, the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, and the abrupt transformation of the Amazon rainforest into savanna, could materialise as early as 2038.

In climatology, the term “tipping point” refers to the threshold at which a localised climate system, known as a “tipping element,” undergoes irreversible change. For example, the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet could lead to reduced snowfall in its northern region, making large parts of the sheet unrecoverable. While these drastic transformations remain poorly understood and often rely on oversimplified models, a new study published in the journal Nature on June 22 aims to shed light on their inner workings and suggests that they may occur much sooner than previously anticipated.

“Over a fifth of ecosystems worldwide are in danger of collapsing,” co-author Simon Willcock, a professor of sustainability at Bangor University in the U.K., said in a statement. “However, ongoing stresses and extreme events interact to accelerate rapid changes that may well be out of our control. Once these reach a tipping point, it’s too late.”

Unlike the well-established link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, the study of tipping points is still in its infancy and has sparked debates within the scientific community. To comprehend how rising temperatures and environmental stressors could lead to the breakdown of complex ecosystems, scientists use computer models to simplify the dynamics of these ecosystems, enabling them to predict the timing of tipping points.

However, the accuracy of these simulations hinges on the inclusion of all relevant factors, and any omission could lead to significantly skewed forecasts. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a crucial body evaluating climate science under the United Nations, predicts that the Amazon rainforest could reach its tipping point and transform into a savannah by 2100. Nonetheless, the new study’s researchers argue that this forecast is too optimistic.

They assert that most tipping-point studies in their models tend to focus on a single dominant driver of collapse, like deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. However, ecosystems do not face isolated challenges but rather a complex web of destabilising factors that compound one another. For example, the Amazon confronts rising temperatures, soil degradation, water pollution, and water stress in addition to deforestation.

To investigate the interactions between these elements and their potential to hasten a system’s demise, the researchers built computer models of two lake ecosystems, two forest ecosystems (including one simulating the collapse of civilisation on Easter Island), and ran them over 70,000 times while adjusting the variables. Their findings were deeply concerning: when multiple causes of collapse acted together, the abrupt transformation of some systems occurred up to 80% closer to the present day.

Even when the primary cause of collapse was held constant, 15% of collapses occurred purely due to the introduction of new elements.

“Our main finding from four ecological models was that ecosystems could collapse 30-80% earlier depending on the nature of additional stress,” co-author John Dearing, a professor of physical geography at Southampton University in the U.K. told Live Science in an email. “So if previous tipping points were forecast for 2100 (i.e. 77 years from now) we are suggesting these could happen 23 to 62 years earlier depending on the nature of the stresses.”

This implies that significant social and economic costs from climate change might manifest much sooner than anticipated, leaving governments with even less time to respond effectively.

“This has potentially profound implications for our perception of future ecological risks,” co-author Gregory Cooper, a climate systems researcher at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., said in the statement. “While it is not currently possible to predict how climate-induced tipping points and the effects of local human actions on ecosystems will connect, our findings show the potential for each to reinforce the other. Any increasing pressure on ecosystems will be exceedingly detrimental and could have dangerous consequences.”