" On the other hand, the climate record shows that it would be a mistake to assume that change, when it comes, will come gradually. Perovich offered a comparison that he had heard from a glaciologist friend. The friend likened the climate system to a rowboat: “You can tip and then you’ll just go back. You can tip it and just go back. And then you tip it and you get to the other stable state, which is upside down. "

― Elizabeth Kolbert , Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change