If it is a “tipping point”, then doesn’t that mean it should swing back toward cooling?
I think it means Guam is going to capsize.
The climate of earth tends to stay within a relatively narrow band, largely because of the astounding power of a quantity of water molecules that fill the oceans and all surface waters, and a varying composition of the atmosphere. When very cold, the water molecules form into ice, and when very warm, into water vapor. In between, it remains largely in liquid form. The transition from solid to liquid involves the absorption of a great deal of heat, some 80 calories of heat per gram. To change one gram of liquid water to water vapor (steam) requires some 540 calories of heat, or conversely, the steam must give up that amount of heat energy to return to liquid state. Likewise, liquid water has to give up the 80 calories of heat energy per gram to form ice.
Water in all its forms is the great regulator of temperature of the air, soil and bodies of water. Runaway “tipping point” changes are not possible over the short term. And the presence or absence of carbon dioxide has not a damned thing to do with
the heat transfer capacity of the water molecule.