Plot Synopsis

This documentary series explores the emerging tipping points of the Earth's changing climate system and follows a group of pre-eminent scientists as they venture off the grid to explore the perilous circumstances making our weather systems more extreme and unpredictable. TIPPING POINTS features several of the most critical examples -- including the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, total melting of the Himalayan icecap glaciers, dieback of the Amazon rainforest, shutdown of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, and the rapid melt of the Permafrost in Siberia -- where a small change can have a large, long-term consequence on a fragile climate system already in a state of flux. Plus, the series highlights a number of leading international environmental scientists in each episode such as Torben Christensen, Peter Cox, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Matthew England, James Hansen, Tim Lenton, Yadvinder Malhi, Konrad Steffen, Katey Walker, Jay Zwally, and more. Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist for The Weather Channel, served as contributing science editor.