NP2.4
Nonlinear Dynamics and Tipping Points in the Earth System

NP2.4

EDI
Nonlinear Dynamics and Tipping Points in the Earth System
Co-organized by CL4/CR7/OS1
Convener: Niklas Boers | Co-conveners: Hannah ChristensenECSECS, Peter Ditlevsen, Christian Franzke, Anna von der Heydt, Timothy Lenton , Marisa Montoya, Paul Williams, Naiming Yuan
Presentations
| Mon, 23 May, 15:10–18:30 (CEST)
 
Room 0.94/95, Tue, 24 May, 08:30–11:50 (CEST)
 
Room 0.94/95

Presentations: Mon, 23 May | Room 0.94/95

Chairpersons: Anna von der Heydt, Marisa Montoya
Abrupt transitions in past climates
15:10–15:20
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EGU22-10128
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solicited
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On-site presentation
Nonautonomous dynamics and its applications to paleoclimate 
Michael Ghil

The dynamics of systems with time-dependent forcing or coefficients has become a matter of considerable interest in the last couple of decades in general and in the last dozen years or so in the climate sciences in particular (Ghil, 2019; Ghil & Lucarini, 2020; Ghil, 2021; Tel et al., 2021; and references therein). We shall provide a general introduction to the topic and illustrate it with several paleoclimate-related examples (Crucifix, 2012; Riechers et al., 2022; Rousseau et al., 2022). Perspectives for further applications of the concepts and methods of the theory of pullback and random attractors and of their tipping points to paleoclimate will also be provided.

References

  • Crucifix, M.: Oscillators and relaxation phenomena in Pleistocene climate theory, PTRSA, 370, 1140–1165, 2012.
  • Ghil, M., 2019: A century of nonlinearity in the geosciences, Earth & Space Science, 6, 1007–1042, doi: 1029/2019EA000599.
  • Ghil, M., 2020: Review article: Hilbert problems for the climate sciences in the 21st century – 20 years later, Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 27, 429–451, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-429-2020.
  • Ghil, M., and V. Lucarini, 2020: The physics of climate variability and climate change, Mod. Phys., 92(3), 035002, doi: 10.1103/RevModPhys.92.035002.
  • Riechers, K., T. Mitsui, N. Boers, and M. Ghil, 2022: Orbital insolation variations, intrinsic climate variability, and Quaternary glaciations, Clim. Past Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-2021-136, in review.
  • Rousseau, D.-D., W. Bagnewski, and M. Ghil, 2021: Abrupt climate changes and the astronomical theory: are they related?, Clim. Past, accepted, doi: 10.5194/cp-2021-103 .
  • Tél, T., Bódai, T., Drótos, G., Haszpra, T., Herein, M., Kaszás, B. and Vincze, M., 2020. The theory of parallel climate realizations. Journal of Statistical Physics, 179(5), 1496–1530.

How to cite: Ghil, M.: Nonautonomous dynamics and its applications to paleoclimate, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-10128, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-10128, 2022.

15:20–15:27
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EGU22-1514
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On-site presentation
The Mid-Pleistocene Transition: A delayed response to an increasing positive feedback? 
Anne Willem Omta, John Shackleton, Mick Follows, and Peter Thomas

Glacial-interglacial cycles constitute large natural variations in Earth's climate. The Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT) marks a shift of the dominant periodicity of these climate cycles from ~40 to ~100 kyr. Ramping with frequency locking is a promising mechanism to explain the MPT, combining an increase in the internal period with lockings to an external forcing. We identify the strength of positive feedbacks as a key parameter to induce increases in the internal period and allow ramping with frequency locking. Using the calcifier-alkalinity model, we simulate changes in periodicity similar to the Mid-Pleistocene Transition through this mechanism. However, the periodicity shift occurs up to 10 Million years after the change in the feedback strength. This result puts into question the assumption that the cause for the MPT must have operated around the same time as the observed periodicity shift.

How to cite: Omta, A. W., Shackleton, J., Follows, M., and Thomas, P.: The Mid-Pleistocene Transition: A delayed response to an increasing positive feedback?, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-1514, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-1514, 2022.

15:27–15:34
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EGU22-2396
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On-site presentation
Cascade of abrupt transitions in past climates 
Denis-Didier Rousseau, Valerio Lucarini, Witold Bagniewski, and Michael Ghil

The Earth’s climate has experienced numerous abrupt and critical transitions during its long history. Such transitions are evidenced in precise, high-resolution records at different timescales. This type of evidence suggests the possibility of identifying a hierarchy of past critical events, which would yield a more complex perspective on climatic history of the than the classical saddle-node two-dimension representation of tipping points. Such a context allows defining a tipping, or dynamical, landscape (Lucarini and Bódai, 2020), similar to the epigenetic landscape of Waddington (1957).

To illustrate a richer structure of critical transitions, we have analyzed 3 key high-resolution datasets covering the past 66 Ma and provided evidences of abrupt transitions detected with the augmented Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and a recurrence analysis (Bagniewski et al., 2021). These time series are the CENOGRID benthic d18O and d13C (Westerhold et al., 2020), the U1308 benthic d18O, d13C and the d18bulk carbonate (Hodell and Channell, 2016), and the NGRIP d18O (Rasmussen et al., 2014) records. The aim was to examine objectively the observed visual evidence of abrupt transitions and to identify among them the key thresholds indicating regime changes that differentiate among major clusters of variability. This identification is followed by establishing a hierarchy in the observed thresholds organized through a domino-like cascade of abrupt transitions that shaped the Earth’s climate system over the past 66 Ma.

This study is supported by the H2020-funded Tipping Points in the Earth System (TiPES) project.

References

Bagniewski, W., Ghil, M., and Rousseau, D. D.: Automatic detection of abrupt transitions in paleoclimate records, Chaos, 31, https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0062543, 2021.

Hodell, D. A. and Channell, J. E. T.: Mode transitions in Northern Hemisphere glaciation: co-evolution of millennial and orbital variability in Quaternary climate, Clim. Past, 12, 1805–1828, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-1805-2016, 2016.

Lucarini, V. and Bódai, T.: Global stability properties of the climate: Melancholia states, invariant measures, and phase transitions, Nonlinearity, 33, R59–R92, https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6544/ab86cc, 2020.

Rasmussen, S. O., Bigler, M., Blockley, S. P., et al.: A stratigraphic framework for abrupt climatic changes during the Last Glacial period based on three synchronized Greenland ice-core records: refining and extending the INTIMATE event stratigraphy, Quat. Sci. Rev., 106, 14–28, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.09.007, 2014.

Waddington, C. H.: The strategy of the genes., Allen & Unwin., London, 1957.

Westerhold, T., Marwan, N., Drury, A. J., et al.: An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years, Science, 369, 1383-+, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba6853, 2020.

How to cite: Rousseau, D.-D., Lucarini, V., Bagniewski, W., and Ghil, M.: Cascade of abrupt transitions in past climates, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2396, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2396, 2022.

15:34–15:41
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EGU22-10628
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Loss of Earth System Resilience during Early Eocene Global Warming Events 
Shruti Setty, Marlow Julius Cramwinckel, Ingrid van de Leemput, Egbert H. van Nes, Lucas J. Lourens, Appy Sluijs, and Marten Scheffer

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; 56 Ma) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 and 3 (ETM2; 54.06 Ma and ETM3; 52.87 Ma) were three of a series of abrupt climate and carbon cycle perturbations, characterized by massive carbon input into the ocean-atmosphere system and strong global warming. These abrupt events, termed hyperthermals, potentially represent ‘tipping points’ at moments in time when the resilience of the system was low and reinforced by strong internal feedbacks, such as the catastrophic release of carbon from submarine methane hydrates. Alternatively, external mechanisms such as volcanism may have played a pronounced external role during the PETM. Here, we evaluate if the hyperthermals indeed resulted from reduced Earth System resilience and tipping point behaviour through the mathematical analyses of climate and carbon cycle indicators, namely, oxygen and stable carbon isotope ratios of deep ocean foraminifer calcite, across the late Paleocene and early Eocene. Our combined analysis using Dynamic Indicators of Resilience (DIORs) and Convergent Cross Mapping (CCM) reveals a loss of resilience and an increase in the causal interaction between the carbon cycle and climate towards the PETM, ETM2, and ETM3. A novel, windowed CCM approach indicates a tight coupling between carbon and climate across the early Eocene, further supporting dominant climate forcing on carbon cycle dynamics. This indicates that the internal rather than external mechanisms were responsible for the hyperthermals, suggesting a secondary role for endogenic processes such as volcanism. Furthermore, the CCM analysis in conjunction with the absence of major positive feedbacks such as the presence of polar ice caps during early Eocene could be employed to stipulate that these hyperthermal events may be caused by the increase in coupling between the carbon cycle and climate systems, eventually pushing both systems towards a tipping point through increasing positive feedbacks.

How to cite: Setty, S., Cramwinckel, M. J., Leemput, I. V. D., Nes, E. H. V., Lourens, L. J., Sluijs, A., and Scheffer, M.: Loss of Earth System Resilience during Early Eocene Global Warming Events, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-10628, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-10628, 2022.

15:41–15:48
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EGU22-2784
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ECS
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On-site presentation
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Mechanisms behind climate oscillations in last glacial maximum simulations 
Yvan Romé, Ruza Ivanovic, and Lauren Gregoire

Millennial-scale variability has been extensively observed across the last glacial period records (115 to 12 thousand years ago) but reproducing it on general circulation models remains a challenge. In recent years, a growing number of climate models have reported simulations with oscillating behaviours comparable to typical abrupt climate changes, although often relying on unrealistic forcing fields and/or boundary conditions. This may become an issue when trying to review the mechanisms at stake because of glacial climates’ sensitivity to these parameters, notably ice sheets geometry and greenhouse gases concentration.

With the addition of snapshots of the early last deglaciation meltwater history over a last glacial maximum (~21 thousand years ago) equilibrium simulation, we obtained different regimes of climate variability, including oscillations that provides the perfect framework for studying abrupt climate changes dynamics in a glacial background. The oscillations consist of shifts between cold modes with a weak to almost collapsed Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation (AMOC) and warmer and stronger AMOC modes, with large reorganisation of the deep-water formation sites, surface ocean and atmospheric circulations. The phenomenon has a periodicity of roughly every 1500 years and can be linked to changes of about 10°C in Greenland. This new set of simulation suggests an intricate large-scale coupling between ice, ocean, and atmosphere in the North Atlantic when meltwater is discharged to the North Atlantic.

Most attempts at theorising millennial-scale variability have involved vast transfers of salt between the subtropical and subpolar gyres, often referred to as the salt oscillator mechanism, that in turn controlled the intensity of the north Atlantic current. We believe that the salt oscillator is in fact part of a larger harmonic motion spanning through all components of the climate system and that can enter into resonance under the specific boundary conditions and/or forcing. Illustrated by the mapping of the main salinity and heat fluxes on the oscillating simulations, we propose a new interpretation of the salt oscillator that includes the stochastic resonance phenomenon as well as the effect of meltwater forcing.

How to cite: Romé, Y., Ivanovic, R., and Gregoire, L.: Mechanisms behind climate oscillations in last glacial maximum simulations, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2784, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2784, 2022.

15:48–15:55
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EGU22-3973
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ECS
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On-site presentation
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A minimal SDE model of D-O events with multiplicative noise 
Kolja Kypke and Peter Ditlevsen

The abrupt transitions in the last glacial period between cold stadial and warmer interstadial climate states found in Greenlandic ice-core records, known as Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events, are a rich topic of study not only due to their potential similarities in time scales and mechanisms to present and near-future climate transitions but also since their underlying physical mechanisms are not fully understood. The dynamics of the climate can be described by a Langevin equation dx = −∂U/∂x dt + η(t) where the potential U(x) has a bimodal distribution to represent the stable stadial and interstadial states and the stochastic process η(t) is usually realized as a Gaussian white noise process that causes jumps between these two states. From the steady-state of the Fokker-Planck equation associated with this Langevin equation, the potential U(x) can be determined from the probability distribution of the ice-core record time series. Thus this minimal model simulates time series with statistics similar to those of the original ice-core record. Novel to this study, we introduce a multiplicative noise term η(t, x) to represent the different statistical properties of the noise in the stadial and interstadial periods. The difference between the Itô and the Stratonovich integration of the Langevin equation with multiplicative noise results in slight differences in the attribution of the drift and diffusion terms for a transformed variable. This is illustrated by performing both.

How to cite: Kypke, K. and Ditlevsen, P.: A minimal SDE model of D-O events with multiplicative noise, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-3973, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3973, 2022.

15:55–16:02
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EGU22-5997
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ECS
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On-site presentation
A fast-slow model for glacial cycles since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition 
Jade Ajagun-Brauns and Peter Ditlevsen

A new simple approach inspired by MacAyeal (1979) to explain the time-asymmetric ‘saw-toothed’ shape and 100,000-year quasi-period of glacial-interglacial cycles since the Middle Pleistocene Transition, is presented. Using a simple model with fast-slow dynamics, the global ice volume is taken to be a function of two independently varying parameters, the solar insolation and ‘alpha’, a secondary control parameter, the study of which is the focus this research. The steady state of the model is a partially folded surface in three-dimensional space where insolation, ‘alpha’, and global ice volume are orthogonal axes. The pleated surface allows for the gradual increase and sudden decrease in ice volume that is observed in the paleoclimate record. To derive a time series of global ice volume, the Euler integration method is used, producing a time series which replicates the ‘saw-toothed’ pattern of glacial cycles in the late Pleistocene. The second control parameter, ‘alpha’, is proposed to be related to internal dynamics of the climate system, such as ice sheet dynamics.

 

Reference

D. R.  MacAyeal, ‘A Catastrophe Model of the Paleoclimate Record’ , Journal of Glaciology , Volume 24 , Issue 90 , 1979 , pp. 245 – 257.

How to cite: Ajagun-Brauns, J. and Ditlevsen, P.: A fast-slow model for glacial cycles since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-5997, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-5997, 2022.

16:02–16:09
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EGU22-8412
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Presentation form not yet defined
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Pleistocene/Holocene (P/H) boundary oceanic Koefels-comet Impact Series Scenario (KISS) of 12.850 yr BP Global-warming Threshold Triad (GTT)-Part II *) 
Michael Dr. Bujatti-Narbeshuber

Confirmation exists for the 1997 revolutionary date of 12.850 cal yr BP established for the Laacher See Eruption (LSE) and introduced to encourage US-research on the P/H-KISS impact with LSE as isochrone and impact volcanism proxy (Bujatti-Narbeshuber, 1997). Bayesian analysis by Wolbach et al. (2018) of 157 dated records of the YD-impact hypothesis of Firestone et al. (2007) confirms impact with 2.854 ± 0.056 ka BP. This now allows to introduce the much larger P/H-KISS paleoceanographic transition scenario relating also to Holocene up to the present global climate change. The Holocene era, because of the thermohaline damped flow scenario, is herein considered as permanent end of the ice age, suggested here as the climatic consequence of an ocean topography and threshold change. Decoded cave art navigation world maps with Pleistocene paleoceanography content from Altamira , La Pasiega and El Castillo document in each one of the three maps specific AMOC stable states for interstadial/ full stadial/ stadial paleoclimate. Each map-thermohaline stable state is differently relating to a geomorphological boundary condition that is the subaerial surface Topography of a large Mid Atlantic Plateau (MAP)-Island. It is modelled in the P/H-KISS scenario as primary Pleistocene thermohaline phase 0 geomorphological threshold. As physical boundary condition it is in interaction with the thermohaline gulfstream current (above /below/at threshold). This results in the 3 distinct AMOC equilibrium stages of interstadial/ full stadial /stadial, as Pleistocene criticality interconnected by their respective further transition thresholds. When the primary  geomorphological threshold is removed the result is the Holocene damped flow, a transition continuum of thermohaline phases 1, 2, 3. Geomorphological proof is first the MAP-Island, invariably shown on all three maps. Furthermore the MAP-Island is identified by its characteristic topography on decorated columns in Göbekli Tepe as a highly abstract island symbol with deeper political-territorial meanings. With paleo-astronomical precession dating on Pillar 43, the LSE 12.850 cal yr BP date was reproduced and the YD (P/H-KISS) impact series from comet fragments in the Taurid stream were decoded by M. Sweatman (2019).  The symbol sequence on Pillar 18, revealed here for the first time, is the (HI-T) = MAP-Island-Dual 90°-Transition-Tsunami Code of the two step Mid Atlantic Ridge MAR & MAP- Island isostatic submersion by the Taurid stream Koefels-comet oceanic-impact fragments: Paleoclimatology thus confirms and now extends the D. Paillard (1998) three equilibria ocean-box-climate-model with 3 thresholds for 3 transitions between the 3 thermohaline stable states of the ice age to the larger P/H-KISS transition scenario of paleo-climate change. It states that the above 3 AMOC states are exclusively based on the existence of the MAP-Island threshold. Isostatic MAR & MAP-Submergence brings their ice age ending collapse into the broad continuum of the Global warming Threshold Triad with thermohaline damped flow in a very long lasting Holocene interstadial.

 

*) Bujatti-Narbeshuber, M. - Pleistocene/Holocene (P/H) boundary oceanic Koefels-comet Impact Series Scenario (KISS) of 12.850 yr BP Global-warming Threshold Triad (GTT). -Climates: Past, Present and Future; Second European Palaeontological Congress Abstracts edited by D.K. Ferguson & H.A. Kollmann; Vienna, 1997.

 

How to cite: Dr. Bujatti-Narbeshuber, M.: Pleistocene/Holocene (P/H) boundary oceanic Koefels-comet Impact Series Scenario (KISS) of 12.850 yr BP Global-warming Threshold Triad (GTT)-Part II *), EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-8412, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-8412, 2022.