Timothy Lenton

Timothy Lenton, born in July 1973, holds the Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter and was the founding director of its Global Systems Institute, from 2017 to 2023.^1,2 He took a degree in natural sciences at Cambridge in 1994 and a PhD under Andrew Watson at the University of East Anglia in 1998.² His research models the biosphere, climate, biogeochemical cycles and their tipping points.¹ Early in his career he worked on the Gaia hypothesis, showing in Nature in 1998 that a Daisyworld model was strengthened by adding natural selection, and with Watson he wrote Revolutions that Made the Earth.²

His university credits his work identifying climate tipping points with informing the 1.5 °C target.¹ In 2023 he led more than 200 people from over 90 organisations in writing the Global Tipping Points Report, published at COP28. It assessed harmful tipping points in the Earth system and positive ones in society that could speed change toward net zero.¹ He was appointed OBE in 2025 for services to understanding climate tipping points.²

With Chris Boulton and Niklas Boers he wrote the 2022 paper in Nature Climate Change on the loss of resilience in the Amazon rainforest since the early 2000s, which the tipping points entry describes.³