Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades
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 fra...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:93dfaba35c9c45c29b39523dbf559740 2023-09-05T13:15:17+02:00 Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades Nico Wunderling Maximilian Gelbrecht Ricarda Winkelmann Jürgen Kurths Jonathan F Donges 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://doaj.org/article/93dfaba35c9c45c29b39523dbf559740 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://doaj.org/toc/1367-2630 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a 1367-2630 https://doaj.org/article/93dfaba35c9c45c29b39523dbf559740 New Journal of Physics, Vol 22, Iss 12, p 123031 (2020) nonlinear dynamics complex systems basin stability climate tipping elements bifurcation nonlinear processes in the earth Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2020 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a 2023-08-13T00:38:48Z 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 variability ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Antarctic Greenland West Antarctica New Journal of Physics 22 12 123031 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
nonlinear dynamics complex systems basin stability climate tipping elements bifurcation nonlinear processes in the earth Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
nonlinear dynamics complex systems basin stability climate tipping elements bifurcation nonlinear processes in the earth Science Q Physics QC1-999 Nico Wunderling Maximilian Gelbrecht Ricarda Winkelmann Jürgen Kurths Jonathan F Donges Basin stability and limit cycles in a conceptual model for climate tipping cascades |
topic_facet |
nonlinear dynamics complex systems basin stability climate tipping elements bifurcation nonlinear processes in the earth Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
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 variability ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Nico Wunderling Maximilian Gelbrecht Ricarda Winkelmann Jürgen Kurths Jonathan F Donges |
author_facet |
Nico Wunderling Maximilian Gelbrecht Ricarda Winkelmann Jürgen Kurths Jonathan F Donges |
author_sort |
Nico Wunderling |
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 |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://doaj.org/article/93dfaba35c9c45c29b39523dbf559740 |
geographic |
Antarctic Greenland West Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Greenland West Antarctica |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica |
op_source |
New Journal of Physics, Vol 22, Iss 12, p 123031 (2020) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a https://doaj.org/toc/1367-2630 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/abc98a 1367-2630 https://doaj.org/article/93dfaba35c9c45c29b39523dbf559740 |
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_ |
1776197091498917888 |