About the Authors

James Hansen

jimehansen@gmail.com

Affiliation Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Pushker Kharecha

Affiliations Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA, New York, New York, United States of America

Makiko Sato

Affiliation Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Valerie Masson-Delmotte

Affiliation Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Gif-sur-Yvette, France

Frank Ackerman

Affiliation Synapse Energy Economics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

David J. Beerling

Affiliation Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Paul J. Hearty

Affiliation Department of Environmental Studies, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, United States of America

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg

Affiliation Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Shi-Ling Hsu

Affiliation College of Law, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America

Camille Parmesan

Affiliations Marine Institute, Plymouth University, Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom, Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, United States of America

Johan Rockstrom

Affiliation Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Eelco J. Rohling

Affiliations School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Jeffrey Sachs

Affiliation Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Pete Smith

Affiliation University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom

Konrad Steffen

Affiliation Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zurich, Switzerland

Lise Van Susteren

Affiliation Center for Health and the Global Environment, Advisory Board, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Karina von Schuckmann

Affiliation L’Institut Francais de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer, Ifremer, Toulon, France

James C. Zachos

Affiliation Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JH PK MS. Performed the experiments: MS PK. Wrote the paper: JH. Wrote the first draft: JH. All authors made numerous critiques and suggested specific wording and references: JH PK MS VM-D FA DJB PJH OHG SLH CP JR EJR JS PS KS LVS KvS JCZ. Especially: PK MS VM-D.