Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades
Abstract Tipping elements in the climate system are large-scale subregions of the Earth that might possess threshold behavior under global warming with large potential impacts on human societies. Here, we study a subset of five tipping elements and their interactions in a conceptual and easily exten...
Published in: | New Journal of Physics |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , |
Other Authors: | , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
IOP Publishing
2020
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a/pdf |
id |
crioppubl:10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crioppubl:10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a 2024-09-15T17:46:38+00:00 Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades Wunderling, Nico Gelbrecht, Maximilian Winkelmann, Ricarda Kurths, Jürgen Donges, Jonathan F Leibniz-Gemeinschaft Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes Stordalen Foundation Earth League H2020 European Research Council Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a/pdf unknown IOP Publishing https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining New Journal of Physics volume 22, issue 12, page 123031 ISSN 1367-2630 journal-article 2020 crioppubl https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a 2024-07-22T04:16:23Z Abstract Tipping elements in the climate system are large-scale subregions of the Earth that might possess threshold behavior under global warming with large potential impacts on human societies. Here, we study a subset of five tipping elements and their interactions in a conceptual and easily extendable framework: the Greenland Ice Sheets (GIS) and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the El–Niño Southern Oscillation and the Amazon rainforest. In this nonlinear and multistable system, we perform a basin stability analysis to detect its stable states and their associated Earth system resilience. By combining these two methodologies with a large-scale Monte Carlo approach, we are able to propagate the many uncertainties associated with the critical temperature thresholds and the interaction strengths of the tipping elements. Using this approach, we perform a system-wide and comprehensive robustness analysis with more than 3.5 billion ensemble members. Further, we investigate dynamic regimes where some of the states lose stability and oscillations appear using a newly developed basin bifurcation analysis methodology. Our results reveal that the state of four or five tipped elements has the largest basin volume for large levels of global warming beyond 4 °C above pre-industrial climate conditions, representing a highly undesired state where a majority of the tipping elements reside in the transitioned regime. For lower levels of warming, states including disintegrated ice sheets on west Antarctica and Greenland have higher basin volume than other state configurations. Therefore in our model, we find that the large ice sheets are of particular importance for Earth system resilience. We also detect the emergence of limit cycles for 0.6% of all ensemble members at rare parameter combinations. Such limit cycle oscillations mainly occur between the GIS and AMOC (86%), due to their negative feedback coupling. These limit cycles point to possibly dangerous internal modes of ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica IOP Publishing New Journal of Physics 22 12 123031 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
IOP Publishing |
op_collection_id |
crioppubl |
language |
unknown |
description |
Abstract Tipping elements in the climate system are large-scale subregions of the Earth that might possess threshold behavior under global warming with large potential impacts on human societies. Here, we study a subset of five tipping elements and their interactions in a conceptual and easily extendable framework: the Greenland Ice Sheets (GIS) and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the El–Niño Southern Oscillation and the Amazon rainforest. In this nonlinear and multistable system, we perform a basin stability analysis to detect its stable states and their associated Earth system resilience. By combining these two methodologies with a large-scale Monte Carlo approach, we are able to propagate the many uncertainties associated with the critical temperature thresholds and the interaction strengths of the tipping elements. Using this approach, we perform a system-wide and comprehensive robustness analysis with more than 3.5 billion ensemble members. Further, we investigate dynamic regimes where some of the states lose stability and oscillations appear using a newly developed basin bifurcation analysis methodology. Our results reveal that the state of four or five tipped elements has the largest basin volume for large levels of global warming beyond 4 °C above pre-industrial climate conditions, representing a highly undesired state where a majority of the tipping elements reside in the transitioned regime. For lower levels of warming, states including disintegrated ice sheets on west Antarctica and Greenland have higher basin volume than other state configurations. Therefore in our model, we find that the large ice sheets are of particular importance for Earth system resilience. We also detect the emergence of limit cycles for 0.6% of all ensemble members at rare parameter combinations. Such limit cycle oscillations mainly occur between the GIS and AMOC (86%), due to their negative feedback coupling. These limit cycles point to possibly dangerous internal modes of ... |
author2 |
Leibniz-Gemeinschaft Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes Stordalen Foundation Earth League H2020 European Research Council Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wunderling, Nico Gelbrecht, Maximilian Winkelmann, Ricarda Kurths, Jürgen Donges, Jonathan F |
spellingShingle |
Wunderling, Nico Gelbrecht, Maximilian Winkelmann, Ricarda Kurths, Jürgen Donges, Jonathan F Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
author_facet |
Wunderling, Nico Gelbrecht, Maximilian Winkelmann, Ricarda Kurths, Jürgen Donges, Jonathan F |
author_sort |
Wunderling, Nico |
title |
Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
title_short |
Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
title_full |
Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
title_fullStr |
Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
title_full_unstemmed |
Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
title_sort |
basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a/pdf |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica |
op_source |
New Journal of Physics volume 22, issue 12, page 123031 ISSN 1367-2630 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a |
container_title |
New Journal of Physics |
container_volume |
22 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
123031 |
_version_ |
1810494938815660032 |