Recent assessments on the integrity of the Earth system and planetary health recognize the deteriorating resilience of the Earth system, with planetary-scale human impacts leading to increasing transgression of planetary boundaries constituting a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene (Richardson et al., Science Advances, 2023). Earth resilience, the capacity of the Earth system to resist, recover and regenerate from anthropogenic pressures, critically depends on the nonlinear interplay of positive and negative feedbacks of biophysical and increasingly also socio-economic processes and human-Earth system interactions. These include dynamics and interactions between the carbon cycle, the atmosphere, oceans, large-scale ecosystems, and the cryosphere, as well as the dynamics and perturbations associated with human activities. Studying Earth resilience requires a deeply integrated perspective on the human-Earth system in the Anthropocene and, hence, strong collaboration between diverse subdisciplines of Earth system science.
With rising anthropogenic pressures, there is an increasing risk of the human-Earth system hitting the ceiling of some of the self-regulating feedbacks of the Earth System, and of crossing tipping points in the large ice sheets, atmosphere-ocean circulation systems (e.g. the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) and biomes such as the Amazon rainforest. Transgressing these critical thresholds in human pressures such as greenhouse gas emissions and land-use changes could trigger large-scale and often abrupt and irreversible impacts on the biosphere and the livelihoods of millions of people. Potential domino effects or tipping cascades could arise due to the interactions between these tipping elements and lead to a further decline of Earth resilience. At the same time, there is growing evidence supporting the potential of positive (social) tipping points that could propel rapid decarbonization and transformative change towards global sustainability.
In this session, we invite contributions on all topics relating to Earth resilience, tipping points in the Earth system, planetary boundaries, positive (social) tipping, as well as their interactions and potential cascading domino effects. We are particularly interested in diverse methodological and quantitative approaches, from Earth system modelling to conceptual modelling and data analysis of nonlinearities, tipping points and abrupt shifts in the Earth system.