Global warming overshoots increase risks of climate tipping cascades in a network model

• Published in: Nature Climate Change
• Main Authors: Wunderling, N., Winkelmann, R., Rockström, J., Loriani, S., McKay, D., Ritchie, P., Sakschewski, B., Donges, J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_27628; https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_27628_3/component/file_28150/27628oa.pdf

Current policies and actions make it very likely, at least temporarily, to overshoot the Paris climate targets of 1.5–<2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels. If this global warming range is exceeded, potential tipping elements such as the Greenland Ice Sheet and Amazon rainforest may be at increasing risk of crossing critical thresholds. This raises the question of how much this risk is amplified by increasing overshoot magnitude and duration. Here we investigate the danger for tipping under a range of temperature overshoot scenarios using a stylized network model of four interacting climate tipping elements. Our model analysis reveals that temporary overshoots can increase tipping risks by up to 72% compared with non-overshoot scenarios, even when the long-term equilibrium temperature stabilizes within the Paris range. Our results suggest that avoiding high-end climate risks is possible only for low-temperature overshoots and if long-term temperatures stabilize at or below today’s levels of global warming.