Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming
With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies. While the underlying processes are fairly well-understood,...
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ftleibnizopen:oai:oai.leibnizopen.de:PfVD-IYBdbrxVwz6rt0q 2023-05-15T13:46:16+02:00 Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming Wunderling, Nico Donges, Jonathan F. Kurths, Jürgen Winkelmann, Ricarda 2021 application/pdf https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/8519 https://doi.org/10.34657/7557 eng eng Göttingen : Copernicus CC BY 4.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Earth System Dynamics 12 (2021), Nr. 2 550 article Text 2021 ftleibnizopen https://doi.org/10.34657/7557 2023-03-20T00:27:38Z With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies. While the underlying processes are fairly well-understood, it is unclear how their interactions might impact the overall stability of the Earth's climate system. As of yet, this cannot be fully analysed with state-of-the-art Earth system models due to computational constraints as well as some missing and uncertain process representations of certain tipping elements. Here, we explicitly study the effects of known physical interactions among the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Amazon rainforest using a conceptual network approach. We analyse the risk of domino effects being triggered by each of the individual tipping elements under global warming in equilibrium experiments. In these experiments, we propagate the uncertainties in critical temperature thresholds, interaction strengths and interaction structure via large ensembles of simulations in a Monte Carlo approach. Overall, we find that the interactions tend to destabilise the network of tipping elements. Furthermore, our analysis reveals the qualitative role of each of the four tipping elements within the network, showing that the polar ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica are oftentimes the initiators of tipping cascades, while the AMOC acts as a mediator transmitting cascades. This indicates that the ice sheets, which are already at risk of transgressing their temperature thresholds within the Paris range of 1.5 to 2 ∘C, are of particular importance for the stability of the climate system as a whole. Leibniz_Fonds publishedVersion Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Greenland West Antarctica LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association) Antarctic Greenland West Antarctica |
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English |
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550 Wunderling, Nico Donges, Jonathan F. Kurths, Jürgen Winkelmann, Ricarda Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
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550 |
description |
With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies. While the underlying processes are fairly well-understood, it is unclear how their interactions might impact the overall stability of the Earth's climate system. As of yet, this cannot be fully analysed with state-of-the-art Earth system models due to computational constraints as well as some missing and uncertain process representations of certain tipping elements. Here, we explicitly study the effects of known physical interactions among the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Amazon rainforest using a conceptual network approach. We analyse the risk of domino effects being triggered by each of the individual tipping elements under global warming in equilibrium experiments. In these experiments, we propagate the uncertainties in critical temperature thresholds, interaction strengths and interaction structure via large ensembles of simulations in a Monte Carlo approach. Overall, we find that the interactions tend to destabilise the network of tipping elements. Furthermore, our analysis reveals the qualitative role of each of the four tipping elements within the network, showing that the polar ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica are oftentimes the initiators of tipping cascades, while the AMOC acts as a mediator transmitting cascades. This indicates that the ice sheets, which are already at risk of transgressing their temperature thresholds within the Paris range of 1.5 to 2 ∘C, are of particular importance for the stability of the climate system as a whole. Leibniz_Fonds publishedVersion |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wunderling, Nico Donges, Jonathan F. Kurths, Jürgen Winkelmann, Ricarda |
author_facet |
Wunderling, Nico Donges, Jonathan F. Kurths, Jürgen Winkelmann, Ricarda |
author_sort |
Wunderling, Nico |
title |
Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
title_short |
Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
title_full |
Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
title_fullStr |
Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
title_full_unstemmed |
Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
title_sort |
interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming |
publisher |
Göttingen : Copernicus |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/8519 https://doi.org/10.34657/7557 |
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 |
Earth System Dynamics 12 (2021), Nr. 2 |
op_rights |
CC BY 4.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.34657/7557 |
_version_ |
1766239613530144768 |