Causal feedbacks in climate change
The statistical association between temperature and greenhouse gases over glacial cycles is well documented1, but causality behind this correlation remains difficult to extract directly from the data. A time lag of CO2 behind Antarctic temperature—originally thought to hint at a driving role for tem...
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ftpubman:oai:pure.mpg.de:item_2125321 2023-08-27T04:05:17+02:00 Causal feedbacks in climate change van Nes, E. Scheffer, M. Brovkin, V. Lenton, T. Ye, H. Deyle, E. Sugihara, G. 2015-05 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A264-F http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26B-1 http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26C-0 eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1038/NCLIMATE2568 http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A264-F http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26B-1 http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26C-0 Nature Climate Change info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2015 ftpubman https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2568 2023-08-02T01:13:09Z The statistical association between temperature and greenhouse gases over glacial cycles is well documented1, but causality behind this correlation remains difficult to extract directly from the data. A time lag of CO2 behind Antarctic temperature—originally thought to hint at a driving role for temperature2, 3—is absent4, 5 at the last deglaciation, but recently confirmed at the last ice age inception6 and the end of the earlier termination II (ref. 7). We show that such variable time lags are typical for complex nonlinear systems such as the climate, prohibiting straightforward use of correlation lags to infer causation. However, an insight from dynamical systems theory8 now allows us to circumvent the classical challenges of unravelling causation from multivariate time series. We build on this insight to demonstrate directly from ice-core data that, over glacial–interglacial timescales, climate dynamics are largely driven by internal Earth system mechanisms, including a marked positive feedback effect from temperature variability on greenhouse-gas concentrations. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic ice core Max Planck Society: MPG.PuRe Antarctic Nature Climate Change 5 5 445 448 |
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Open Polar |
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Max Planck Society: MPG.PuRe |
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ftpubman |
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English |
description |
The statistical association between temperature and greenhouse gases over glacial cycles is well documented1, but causality behind this correlation remains difficult to extract directly from the data. A time lag of CO2 behind Antarctic temperature—originally thought to hint at a driving role for temperature2, 3—is absent4, 5 at the last deglaciation, but recently confirmed at the last ice age inception6 and the end of the earlier termination II (ref. 7). We show that such variable time lags are typical for complex nonlinear systems such as the climate, prohibiting straightforward use of correlation lags to infer causation. However, an insight from dynamical systems theory8 now allows us to circumvent the classical challenges of unravelling causation from multivariate time series. We build on this insight to demonstrate directly from ice-core data that, over glacial–interglacial timescales, climate dynamics are largely driven by internal Earth system mechanisms, including a marked positive feedback effect from temperature variability on greenhouse-gas concentrations. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
van Nes, E. Scheffer, M. Brovkin, V. Lenton, T. Ye, H. Deyle, E. Sugihara, G. |
spellingShingle |
van Nes, E. Scheffer, M. Brovkin, V. Lenton, T. Ye, H. Deyle, E. Sugihara, G. Causal feedbacks in climate change |
author_facet |
van Nes, E. Scheffer, M. Brovkin, V. Lenton, T. Ye, H. Deyle, E. Sugihara, G. |
author_sort |
van Nes, E. |
title |
Causal feedbacks in climate change |
title_short |
Causal feedbacks in climate change |
title_full |
Causal feedbacks in climate change |
title_fullStr |
Causal feedbacks in climate change |
title_full_unstemmed |
Causal feedbacks in climate change |
title_sort |
causal feedbacks in climate change |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A264-F http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26B-1 http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26C-0 |
geographic |
Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic ice core |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic ice core |
op_source |
Nature Climate Change |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1038/NCLIMATE2568 http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A264-F http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26B-1 http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-A26C-0 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2568 |
container_title |
Nature Climate Change |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
445 |
op_container_end_page |
448 |
_version_ |
1775356972702367744 |