Berlin 2024 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 14: Focus Session: Dynamics of Socio-ecological Systems
SOE 14.2: Vortrag
Mittwoch, 20. März 2024, 11:35–11:50, MA 001
Cascading climate tipping events and can society prevent them? — •Nico Wunderling1,2,3, Saverio Perri3, Johan Rockström1,2, Michael Oppenheimer3, Amilcare Porporato3, Jonathan F. Donges1,2,3, Simon A. Levin3, Elke U. Weber3, and Wolfram Barfuss1,4 — 1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research — 2Stockholm Resilience Centre — 3Princeton University — 4Transdisciplinary Research Area: Sustainable Futures, University of Bonn
Several climate tipping elements such as the Amazon rainforest or the large ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are showing increasing signs of dramatic change in response to human-made global warming. While dangerous tipping risks can be reduced by keeping strict temperature guardrails set by international agreements, so far, such agreements have prompted only moderate emission cuts due to socio-political challenges. Here, we couple a conceptual model of interacting climate tipping elements to a simplified social model outlining an energy-production transition toward clean energy. Using this coupled model, we find that three ingredients are required for a fast sustainability transition, achieving a safe sustainability transition without triggering tipping events or cascades: (i) Strong political incentives to invest in clean energies, (ii) high societal pressure to avoid crossing climate tipping thresholds, and (iii) scientific guidance leading to sufficiently small uncertainties in tipping points. If these conditions are met, we reveal that tipping risks can be reduced strongly in particular when uncertainties in tipping element thresholds are reduced
Keywords: climate tipping elements; cascading transitions; sustainability transformation; human-Earth system modelling; Earth resilience