There’s a weird 'sweet spot' for how fast the climate shifts; if it hits that speed, it can trigger an ice age easier than if it moved faster or slower.
arXiv · March 17, 2026 · 2603.15043
The Takeaway
Researchers found that tipping points are sensitive to the 'rate' of change, not just the temperature itself. If the environment shifts at a specific resonance frequency, the climate is much more likely to collapse into an ice age than if the change happened either more rapidly or more gradually.
From the abstract
Many physical systems are forced by external inputs, which can sometimes take the form of chaotic variation. A particular example is found in applications related to weather and climate, where chaotic variation is prevalent across various timescales. If the system in question has multiple attracting solutions for a given range of forcing, rate-induced tipping can be triggered by the chaotic forcing, with the difference in timescales between the forcing and the system acting as a `rate' parameter