Feedback Loops In Nature

The month of August 2026 is going down in history as one of the hottest months in all of recorded history and probably at least in the last 100,000 years. In fact, all 10 years of the last decade (2015–2024) have been among the 10 warmest years on record, marking the first time in nearly the last 200 years of record-keeping that the hottest decade has entirely comprised the most recent ten years. This year’s El Niño (2026) is likely to be one of the strongest on record. The global weather disrupter has already raised temperatures, stoked wildfires around the globe, created hurricanes in the Pacific,  fishery closures in South America and droughts and flooding around the world. Warming climate and waters alter the ecosystem where plants and animals, fish and shellfish live, pushing them beyond temperatures they can tolerate and increase risk of disease.

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As I write this article the state of Florida is in the process of removing the words “climate change” in textbooks and from the state’s education standards. However, humanity's contributions to this change can no longer be swept under the rug, as the implications are becoming more obvious with every passing day. Nature will do whatever it wants regardless of whatever any politician, government agency, or any corporate or business interests may have to say about it.

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What matters most is the actual cost of climate change on humanity, social services and the public and private entities that we all depend upon. Just ask any underwriter for a property insurance company who and what they pay attention to determine their company’s insurance risks.  If that doesn’t convince you, ask a farmer what are the major components of their risks (and costs) now in planting, growing, combating diseases and harvesting crops or farm animals.

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The image above captures the profound ecological challenges posed by these self-reinforcing climate systems. It vividly illustrates the impact of climate feedback loops. In the foreground, the parched, cracked earth (due to changes in rainfall patterns from extreme swings in droughts to torrential rains) symbolizes extreme drought. So does the problem with rivers shrinking or drying up from lack of snow melt in their mountain sources.  Lack of adequate rainfall also makes farming less productive, promotes food scarcity and rising food prices. It also causes the spread of disease as insects and other organisms carrying and spreading them are no longer killed off by colder winter months.

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In the distance, the image also depicts a raging wildfire (from lack of adequate rainfall and dry soil conditions) and melting glaciers are visible, representing the accelerated warming caused by reduced reflectivity and released carbon, which further drive the cycle.  As the ice melts, it reveals the dark surfaces that were underneath so instead of the ice reflecting the sun’s energy back into space, the energy is absorbed by the dark exposed surfaces causing a further rise in surface temperatures.

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Why the changing climate happened and what is in store for our future? To answer this question, one must understand “closed systems”, "exponential growth", and the nature of "positive feedback loops".

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What is a closed system?

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A closed system is a physical system that allows the exchange of energy (such as heat or work) with its surroundings, but does not allow the exchange of matter. This definition distinguishes it from an open system, which permits both matter and energy transfer, and an isolated system, which permits neither.  The Earth is an example of such a closed system. Only energy in the form of electromagnetic energy (heat or light, etc.) enters or leaves the Earth; matter does not (except for rockets leaving earth or the rare meteors entering.  Both of these events  are miniscule and are of no consequence compared to the mass of the entire planet).

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What is Exponential Growth

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Whereas people have no trouble imagining linear growth (whereby change progresses at a constant, arithmetical rate of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), exponential growth proves much harder to comprehend; its growth is not linear. Exponential growth occurs whenever something’s rate of growth is proportional to its current size. This growth usually arises from self-reinforcing or positive-feedback processes. The change starts out incredibly small and is impossible to notice at first. The larger it becomes, the faster it grows. By the time one can start noticing and observing the change in growth, it can quickly become extremely difficult to manage or control let alone comprehend. (*For more information see the section on Exponential Growth below.)

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Assume, for example, that a technology doubles in capability every year. With exponential growth, 5 years later, it would be 32  times (two raised to the fifth power = 32 or five doublings) more powerful. Human intuition struggles to envision that magnitude of change. It is like watching a moving car, over the same five-year period, become capable of traveling at the speed of a rocket ship heading to the moon. With exponential growth, change starts out infinitesimally small but before anyone has a chance to realize it is out of control, it is almost too late to do anything about it.

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What is a Feedback Loop?

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In systems thinking, a feedback loop occurs when the output of a process circles back to influence the input. In a positive feedback loop, the direction of influence reinforces the initial change: if something increases, the loop causes it to increase even more; if it decreases, the loop drives it down further. One example would be your home’s HVAC system. Instead of turning on the AC as the temperature increases a positive feedback loop would turn on the heat instead of the AC as the temperature of the house rose.  Another example would be as the temperature fell the AC would turn on, making the house even colder. Mathematically, this type of feedback corresponds to a positive loop gain: the effect adds to the cause rather than counteracting it.

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A positive feedback loop is a self-reinforcing cycle in which a change in a system triggers effects that amplify that same change, pushing the system further away from its original state (e.g. further away from equilibrium). While such loops can be useful in limited, controlled contexts (like blood clotting or childbirth), they are dangerous in complex natural or social systems because they can lead to runaway escalation, instability, and potentially irreversible tipping points.

An example of a negative feedback loop is the thermostat in your house in the summer as described above; when the interior of the house gets too hot the AC is automatically turned on; as the house cools the thermostat registers the cooler temperature and turns off the AC.  In negative feedback loops equilibrium is maintained; in positive feedback looks it is not and forces the system more out of equilibrium conditions.

 

Key Aspect of Positive Feedback Loops

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• Amplification: Small disturbances grow large over time.

• Movement away from equilibrium: Unlike negative feedback (which stabilizes), positive feedback pushes the system toward extremes.

• Potential for exponential growth or collapse: If unchecked, the system can accelerate toward a new, often undesirable state.

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A climate change related real example

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One of the most cited and dangerous positive feedback loops is the ice–albedo feedback in Earth’s climate system:

1. Global temperatures rise (due to greenhouse gases).

2. Normally ice and snow reflect sunlight back into space. However, as mountain or polar ice and snow melt, they expose darker ocean or land below.

3. Darker surfaces absorb more sunlight (lower albedo), warming the region further.

4. More warming causes more ice to melt, repeating the cycle. This loop doesn’t just add a little extra warming; it multiplies the effect of the original temperature increase. As more ice disappears, the amplification grows, potentially pushing the climate toward a much warmer state than would occur from greenhouse gases alone.

5. Increasing ice melt also increases ocean levels – warmer water expands and takes up more volume. Melting glaciers on land increases water levels in the oceans.  The current average annual rate of global mean sea level rise is approximately 3.4 to 4.6 millimeters (0.13 to 0.18 inches) per year. A few inches of extra ocean may not sound like much, but coastal flooding is a game of incremental increases stacked on previous incremental increases. Over the course of just 100 years that represents a 34 to 46 cm (13.4 – 18 inches) increase. The annual increases themselves will not necessarily flood anything on its own. It is not like a tsunami, and there will be no moment when it “hits.”  Instead, it quietly raises the baseline the tides ride on top of for weeks or months at a time. Over the course of several years the rise becomes significant, indeed.​

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Even within a given year, the increase matters most during the highest tides of the month or during storm surges. When a peak high tide arrives (typically around full and new moons) with the sea-level baseline already elevated, water that normally stops at the top of the beach can find its way into ocean side buildings, parking lots, bike paths and low-lying streets and increased beach erosion. This is why residents in part of Ft. Lauderdale FL are already finding fish swimming in the costal streets during those times of the month where flooding occurs.

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Why positive feedback loops are so dangerous

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Positive feedback loops are dangerous not because “positive” means good, but because they are destabilizing accelerators. Several features make them especially risky:

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1. Runaway escalation and tipping points

Because each cycle reinforces the last, positive feedback can drive a closed system past critical threshold (called tipping points) after which changes become rapid, large, and increasingly difficult or impossible to reverse. In climate, this could mean irreversible loss of ice sheets, thawing of permafrost releasing vast amounts of methane, reductions in water flow volume in rivers that rely on snow melt to sustain water levels or even collapse of major ocean circulation patterns.

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2. Nonlinear, hard-to-predict behavior

Positive feedback often produces nonlinear dynamics: small causes can have disproportionately large effects (in climate science this is called the butterfly effect: a butterfly flapping its wings in China can eventually create a hurricane in the western pacific) , and the system may shift abruptly rather than gradually. This makes prediction and risk management difficult; models that assume smooth, linear responses can badly underestimate danger.

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3. Cascading and interacting loops

One positive feedback can trigger others, creating cascading feedback loops. For example, Arctic warming can:

• Reduce sea ice (ice–albedo feedback).

• Thaw permafrost, releasing methane (carbon-cycle feedback).

• Alter jet streams and weather patterns, affecting ecosystems and human systems

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These interacting loops can compound risk, leading to “runaway” scenarios where multiple parts of the system accelerate together. Unfortunately, this is the situation we are increasingly finding ourselves in now as the planet continues to warm.

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4. Resistance to correction

Negative feedback loops act like brakes, helping systems self-correct (like a thermostat controlling your house’s AC in summer). Positive feedback loops act like accelerators with no built-in brake. Once they dominate, the system tends to keep moving in the same direction unless an external force intervenes strongly.  Even if this is possible it can often be too late. By the time the danger is obvious, the system may already be near or past a point of no return.

Not all positive feedback is bad; it depends on the context. 

 

In biology and engineering, positive feedback is sometimes deliberately used to push a process to completion:

• Blood clotting: Once a vessel is damaged, clotting factors activate more clotting factors to quickly seal the wound.

• Childbirth: Uterine contractions stimulate hormones that cause stronger contractions until delivery occurs.

• Fruit ripening: Ethylene gas from ripening fruit triggers nearby fruit to ripen, speeding the process.

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These are dangerous only if uncontrolled; in healthy organisms, they are tightly bounded in time and space and eventually shut down by other mechanisms. The danger arises when similar self-reinforcing dynamics operate in large, complex systems (climate, ecosystems, financial markets, social media, technological growth like AI, etc.) without anything to effectively stop the increasing rapid pace of change.

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Why the danger feels counterintuitive

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The term “positive” misleads many people into thinking these loops are beneficial. In systems science, “positive” refers only to the direction of reinforcement, not to value. This linguistic quirk can make the concept seem less threatening than it is. In reality, positive feedback loops are the engines behind some of the most severe systemic risks we face, especially in climate change, where they can transform a manageable problem into a catastrophic one if allowed to dominate. All positive feedback loops create exponential growth, which in closed systems like the earth, can result in the catastrophic consequences described above. (see the sustainability page on the Groking Wholeness website).

In short, a positive feedback loop is dangerous because it turns small disturbances into self-amplifying chains of change, erodes stability, and can push systems past points where recovery is no longer feasible. Recognizing and breaking such loops through policy, design, or intervention is essential to preventing runaway outcomes in both natural and human-made systems.

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Little Time to Change Course

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Short of a meteor or comet strike, a super-volcano eruption or some cosmic event like a supernova explosion resulting in intense radiation from the sun or a nearby star, these life-threatening events occur rarely and usually over geological time frames. This allows surviving organisms to adapt, evolve and to eventually thrive. However, in the modern error rapid change due to these extremely rare events or changes from positive feedback loops and exponential growth that happen in the span of human life times and can be civilization destroyers. They happen so fast they do not give living creatures enough time to adapt to the rapid changes. Unfortunately, that is the situation we face now on several fronts. 

 

To Learn More

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View the sustainability page on our website.

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To learn more about exponential growth,   the following book is offered:  The Cost of Exponential Growth: How Accelerating Change Is Reshaping Humanity by Peter Russell. This book is the result of the author asking AI to write a book on the impact of accelerating change. It wrote it in a day.