Several subsystems of the Earth system have been suggested to react abruptly at critical levels of anthropogenic forcing. Well-known examples of such Tipping Elements include the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the polar ice sheets and sea ice, tropical and boreal forests, as well as the Asian monsoon systems. Interactions between the different Tipping Elements may either have stabilizing or destabilizing effects on the other subsystems, potentially leading to cascades of abrupt transitions. The critical forcing levels at which abrupt transitions occur have recently been associated with Tipping Points.

It is paramount to determine the critical forcing levels (and the associated uncertainties) beyond which the systems in question will abruptly change their state, with potentially devastating climatic, ecological, and societal impacts. For this purpose, we need to substantially enhance our understanding of the dynamics of the Tipping Elements and their interactions, on the basis of paleoclimatic evidence, present-day observations, and models spanning the entire hierarchy of complexity. Moreover, to be able to mitigate - or prepare for - potential future transitions, early warning signals have to be identified and monitored in both observations and models.

This interdisciplinary session invites contributions that address Tipping Points in the Earth system from the different perspectives of all relevant disciplines, including

- the mathematical theory of abrupt transitions in (random) dynamical systems,
- paleoclimatic studies of past abrupt transitions,
- data-driven and process-based modelling of past and future transitions,
- early-warning signals
- the implications of abrupt transitions for Climate sensitivity and response,
- ecological and societal impacts, as well as
- decision theory in the presence of uncertain Tipping Point estimates

Confirmed invited speaker: Michael Ghil

Climate change is projected to result in an increase in extreme and compound weather events, which pose a growing threat to human well-being and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further warming is also projected to reduce the efficacy of carbon sinks acting as negative feedbacks on warming and increase the risk of crossing tipping points and triggering cascading changes in the climate and ecosystems. These processes may reduce the Earth system’s resilience, which has the potential to further amplify climate change and extremes and worsen societal impacts.

Maintaining Earth in the Holocene-like conditions that have enabled the development of the world’s societies will require better understanding of feedbacks and tipping dynamics in both the human world and the biophysical Earth. Societies will need to embark on rapid socio-economic and governance transformations in order to both reduce the risk of triggering tipping points and to improve societal resilience to increasingly likely extreme events. Earth resilience brings the complex dynamics and perturbations associated with human activities into Earth system analysis, and increasingly captures socio-economic as well as biophysical dynamics.

In this session we welcome transdisciplinary and cross-scale contributions relating to climate extremes, tipping dynamics, and Earth resilience, covering topics ranging from the cascading impacts of extreme and compound events, key feedbacks and tipping points in both biophysical and human systems, enhancing societal resilience to extreme events, and the potential for rapid social transformations to global sustainability.

Public information:
EGU 2020 Session TS3.2/NH10.7
Climate Extremes, Tipping Dynamics, and Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene
6 May, 14:00-18:00

This session will run as an EGU website hosted text-based chat accessible here, as well as through a simultaneous Zoom video room (link to be provided during the livechat).

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