Articles | Volume 17, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-333-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-333-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A risk assessment framework for interacting tipping elements
Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Transdisciplinary Research Area Sustainable Futures, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Nico Wunderling
Center for Critical Computational Studies, Goethe-University Frankfurt, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Earth Resilience Science Unit, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Member of the Leibniz Association, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Transdisciplinary Research Area Sustainable Futures, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Earth Resilience Science Unit, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
Institute for Food & Resource Economics, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Related authors
No articles found.
John M. Anderies, Max Bechthold, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Nico Wunderling, Wolfram Barfuss, and Johan Rockström
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6345, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6345, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth System Dynamics (ESD).
Short summary
Short summary
This paper explores a new approach to understanding human-Earth system resilience. It introduces a measure that estimates how likely a system is to reach a safe and just state. Available knowledge about how the system works, its boundaries, and potential disruptions centrally constrain the measure. It could help decision-makers strike a balance between gaining knowledge, building capacity to act, and taking practical measures to improve resilience in many different types of systems.
E. Keith Smith, Carl Folke, Niklas Kitzmann, Manjana Milkoreit, Per Olsson, Ricarda Winkelmann, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Christina Eder, Niklas Harring, Jobst Heitzig, Alexia Katsanidou, Timothy M. Lenton, Franz Mauelshagen, Kelton Minor, Ilona M. Otto, Armon Rezai, Jürgen Scheffran, Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, Rick van der Ploeg, Nico Wunderling, and Jonathan F. Donges
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-177, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-177, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth System Dynamics (ESD).
Short summary
Short summary
Achieving climate and sustainability goals requires rapid, large-scale change. We introduce criticality – the likelihood a system is near a social tipping point – and critical agency – the capacity to shape those conditions. Our framework shows how coalitions and policies can trigger desired shifts and avoid harmful ones, linking complex systems theory with evidence to guide policymakers and practitioners.
Jakob Harteg, Nico Wunderling, and Jonathan Donges
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5058, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5058, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate how resilient Earth’s climate system is to disturbances by analysing glacial-interglacial cycles using a simple climate model. By simulating small and large shocks to ice volume, we show that Earth’s climate more easily returns to its natural path during warm periods. These results improve our understanding of how Earth resilience varies over time in systems driven by external forces.
Florian Ulrich Jehn, Łukasz G. Gajewski, Johanna Hedlund, Constantin W. Arnscheidt, Lili Xia, Nico Wunderling, and David Denkenberger
Earth Syst. Dynam., 16, 1585–1603, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1585-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1585-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The global food trade system can handle small disturbances, but large disasters could cause major disruptions. We looked at how nuclear war or severe infrastructure loss would affect global trade in key crops. Both would be catastrophic, but a nuclear war would cause more severe disruptions, with many countries losing most of their food imports. Both scenarios highlight the need for better preparation to protect global food security.
Max Bechthold, Wolfram Barfuss, André Butz, Jannes Breier, Sara M. Constantino, Jobst Heitzig, Luana Schwarz, Sanam N. Vardag, and Jonathan F. Donges
Earth Syst. Dynam., 16, 1365–1390, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1365-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1365-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Social norms are a major influence on human behaviour. In natural resource use models, norms are often included in a simplistic way leading to “black or white” sustainability outcomes. We find that a dynamic representation of norms, including social groups, determines more nuanced states of the environment in a stylised model of resource use while also defining the success of attempts to manage the system, suggesting the importance of representing both aspects well in coupled models.
Nico Wunderling, Anna S. von der Heydt, Yevgeny Aksenov, Stephen Barker, Robbin Bastiaansen, Victor Brovkin, Maura Brunetti, Victor Couplet, Thomas Kleinen, Caroline H. Lear, Johannes Lohmann, Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta, Sacha Sinet, Didier Swingedouw, Ricarda Winkelmann, Pallavi Anand, Jonathan Barichivich, Sebastian Bathiany, Mara Baudena, John T. Bruun, Cristiano M. Chiessi, Helen K. Coxall, David Docquier, Jonathan F. Donges, Swinda K. J. Falkena, Ann Kristin Klose, David Obura, Juan Rocha, Stefanie Rynders, Norman Julius Steinert, and Matteo Willeit
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 41–74, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-41-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-41-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This paper maps out the state-of-the-art literature on interactions between tipping elements relevant for current global warming pathways. We find indications that many of the interactions between tipping elements are destabilizing. This means that tipping cascades cannot be ruled out on centennial to millennial timescales at global warming levels between 1.5 and 2.0 °C or on shorter timescales if global warming surpasses 2.0 °C.
Jonathan F. Donges, Wolfgang Lucht, Sarah E. Cornell, Jobst Heitzig, Wolfram Barfuss, Steven J. Lade, and Maja Schlüter
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1115–1137, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1115-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1115-2021, 2021
Nico Wunderling, Jonathan F. Donges, Jürgen Kurths, and Ricarda Winkelmann
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 601–619, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-601-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-601-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
In the Earth system, climate tipping elements exist that can undergo qualitative changes in response to environmental perturbations. If triggered, this would result in severe consequences for the biosphere and human societies. We quantify the risk of tipping cascades using a conceptual but fully dynamic network approach. We uncover that the risk of tipping cascades under global warming scenarios is enormous and find that the continental ice sheets are most likely to initiate these failures.
Cited articles
Armstrong McKay, D. I., Staal, A., Abrams, J. F., Winkelmann, R., Sakschewski, B., Loriani, S., Fetzer, I., Cornell, S. E., Rockström, J., and Lenton, T. M.: Exceeding 1.5 °C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points, Science, 377, eabn7950, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7950, 2022. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q
Ashwin, P., Wieczorek, S., Vitolo, R., and Cox, P.: Tipping points in open systems: bifurcation, noise-induced and rate-dependent examples in the climate system, Philos. T. R. Soc. A, 370, 1166–1184, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2011.0306, 2012. a
Bara, J., Santos, F. P., and Turrini, P.: The impact of mobility costs on cooperation and welfare in spatial social dilemmas, Sci. Rep., 14, 10572, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-60806-z, 2024. a
Barfuss, W., Donges, J. F., Lade, S. J., and Kurths, J.: When Optimization for Governing Human-Environment Tipping Elements Is Neither Sustainable nor Safe, Nat. Commun., 9, 2354, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04738-z, 2018. a, b
Barfuss, W., Donges, J. F., and Kurths, J.: Deterministic limit of temporal difference reinforcement learning for stochastic games, Phys. Rev. E, 99, 043305, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.99.043305, 2019. a
Barfuss, W., Donges, J. F., Vasconcelos, V. V., Kurths, J., and Levin, S. A.: Caring for the future can turn tragedy into comedy for long-term collective action under risk of collapse, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 117, 12915–12922, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916545117, 2020. a, b, c
Barfuss, W., Donges, J., and Bethge, M.: Ecologically-mediated collective action in commons with tipping elements, OSF Preprints, https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/7pcnm, 2024. a
Barfuss, W., Flack, J., Gokhale, C. S., Hammond, L., Hilbe, C., Hughes, E., Leibo, J. Z., Lenaerts, T., Leonard, N., Levin, S., Madhushani Sehwag, U., McAvoy, A., Meylahn, J. M., and Santos, F. P.: Collective cooperative intelligence, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 122, e2319948121, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2319948121, 2025. a
Bevacqua, E., Schleussner, C.-F., and Zscheischler, J.: A year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit, Nat. Clim. Change, 15, 262–265, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02246-9, 2025. a
Burke, K. D., Williams, J. W., Chandler, M. A., Haywood, A. M., Lunt, D. J., and Otto-Bliesner, B. L.: Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 115, 13288–13293, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809600115, 2018. a
Cai, Y., Lenton, T. M., and Lontzek, T. S.: Risk of multiple interacting tipping points should encourage rapid CO2 emission reduction, Nat. Clim. Change, 6, 520–525, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2964, 2016. a
Collins, M., M. Sutherland, L. B., Cheong, S.-M., Frölicher, T., Combes, H. J. D., Roxy, M. K., Losada, I., McInnes, K., Ratter, B., Rivera-Arriaga, E., Susanto, R., Swingedouw, D., , and Tibig, L.: Extremes, Abrupt Changes and Managing Risks, in: The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D., Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E., Mintenbeck, K., Alegría, A., Nicolai, M., Okem, A., Petzold, J., Rama, B., and Weyer, N., Cambridge University Press, p. 589–656, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964.008, 2019. a, b
Feldmann, J. and Levermann, A.: Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet after local destabilization of the Amundsen Basin, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 112, 14191–14196, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1512482112, 2015. a
Freeman, L. C.: A Set of Measures of Centrality Based on Betweenness, Sociometry, 40, 35–41, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3033543 (last access: 24 April 2025), 1977. a
Fyfe, J., Fox-Kemper, B., Kopp, R., and Garner, G.: Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report – data for figure SPM.8 (v20210809), Cambridge University Press, 2021. a
Gaucherel, C. and Moron, V.: Potential stabilizing points to mitigate tipping point interactions in Earth's climate, Int. J. Climatol., 37, 399–408, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4712, 2017. a, b, c
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers, in: Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S., Péan, C., Berger, S., Caud, N., Chen, Y., Goldfarb, L., Gomis, M., Huang, M., Leitzell, K., Lonnoy, E., Matthews, J., Maycock, T., Waterfield, T., Yelekçi, O., Yu, R., and Zhou, B., Cambridge University Press, p. 3–32, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.001, 2023. a
Jackson, L. C., Kahana, R., Graham, T., Ringer, M. A., Woollings, T., Mecking, J. V., and Wood, R. A.: Global and European climate impacts of a slowdown of the AMOC in a high resolution GCM, Clim. Dynam., 45, 3299–3316, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2540-2, 2015. a, b
Lam, V. and Majszak, M. M.: Climate tipping points and expert judgment, WIREs Clim. Change, 13, e805, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.805, 2022. a, b
Lee, J.-Y., Marotzke, J., Bala, G., Cao, L., Corti, S., Dunne, J., Engelbrecht, F., Fischer, E., Fyfe, J., Jones, C., Maycock, A., Mutemi, J., Ndiaye, O., Panickal, S., and Zhou, T.: Future Global Climate: Scenario-based Projections and Near-term Information, in: Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S., Péan, C., Berger, S., Caud, N., Chen, Y., Goldfarb, L., Gomis, M., Huang, M., Leitzell, K., Lonnoy, E., Matthews, J., Maycock, T., Waterfield, T., Yelekçi, O., Yu, R., and Zhou, B., Cambridge University Press, p. 553–672, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.006, 2021. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h
Lenton, T. M., Held, H., Kriegler, E., Hall, J. W., Lucht, W., Rahmstorf, S., and Schellnhuber, H. J.: Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 1786–1793, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0705414105, 2008. a, b
Lenton, T. M., Armstrong McKay, D. I., Loriani, S., Abrams, J. F., Lade, S. J., Donges, J. F., Milkoreit, M., Powell, T., Smith, S. R., Zimm, C., Buxton, J. E., Bailey, E., Laybourn, L., Ghadiali, A., and Dyke, J. G.: The Global Tipping Points Report 2023, University of Exeter, https://global-tipping-points.org/ (last access: 4 August 2025), 2023. a, b, c, d, e, f
Lenton, T. M., Milkoreit, M., Willcock, S., Abrams, J., Armstrong McKay, D., Buxton, J., Donges, J., Loriani, S., Wunderling, N., Alkemade, F., Barrett, M., Constantino, S., Powell, T., S. S., Boulton, C. A., Pinho, P., and Dijkstra, H.: The Global Tipping Points Report 2025, University of Exeter, https://global-tipping-points.org/ (last access: 3 November 2025), 2025. a, b, c
Li, Q., Marshall, J., Rye, C. D., Romanou, A., Rind, D., and Kelley, M.: Global Climate Impacts of Greenland and Antarctic Meltwater: A Comparative Study, J. Climate, 36, 3571–3590, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-22-0433.1, 2023. a
Liu, W. and Fedorov, A.: Interaction between Arctic sea ice and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation in a warming climate, Clim. Dynam., 58, 1811–1827, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05993-5, 2022. a
Mehling, O., Börner, R., and Lucarini, V.: Limits to predictability of the asymptotic state of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in a conceptual climate model, Physica D, 459, 134043, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2023.134043, 2024. a
Morice, C. P., Kennedy, J. J., Rayner, N. A., Winn, J. P., Hogan, E., Killick, R. E., Dunn, R. J. H., Osborn, T. J., Jones, P. D., and Simpson, I. R.: An Updated Assessment of Near-Surface Temperature Change From 1850: The HadCRUT5 Data Set, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 126, e2019JD032361, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD032361, 2021. a
Pedro, J. B., Jochum, M., Buizert, C., He, F., Barker, S., and Rasmussen, S. O.: Beyond the bipolar seesaw: Toward a process understanding of interhemispheric coupling, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 192, 27–46, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.05.005, 2018. a
Riahi, K., van Vuuren, D. P., Kriegler, E., Edmonds, J., O’Neill, B. C., Fujimori, S., Bauer, N., Calvin, K., Dellink, R., Fricko, O., Lutz, W., Popp, A., Cuaresma, J. C., KC, S., Leimbach, M., Jiang, L., Kram, T., Rao, S., Emmerling, J., Ebi, K., Hasegawa, T., Havlik, P., Humpenöder, F., Da Silva, L. A., Smith, S., Stehfest, E., Bosetti, V., Eom, J., Gernaat, D., Masui, T., Rogelj, J., Strefler, J., Drouet, L., Krey, V., Luderer, G., Harmsen, M., Takahashi, K., Baumstark, L., Doelman, J. C., Kainuma, M., Klimont, Z., Marangoni, G., Lotze-Campen, H., Obersteiner, M., Tabeau, A., and Tavoni, M.: The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview, Global Environ. Chang., 42, 153–168, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009, 2017. a
Ritchie, P. D. L., Clarke, J. J., Cox, P. M., and Huntingford, C.: Overshooting tipping point thresholds in a changing climate, Nature, 592, 517–523, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03263-2, 2021. a
Rocha, J. C., Peterson, G., Örjan Bodin, and Levin, S.: Cascading regime shifts within and across scales, Science, 362, 1379–1383, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat7850, 2018. a, b
Rosser, J., Winkelmann, R., and Wunderling, N.: Polar ice sheets are decisive contributors to uncertainty in climate tipping projections, Communications Earth & Environment, 5, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01799-5, 2024. a
Sadai, S., Condron, A., DeConto, R., and Pollard, D.: Future climate response to Antarctic Ice Sheet melt caused by anthropogenic warming, Sci. Adv., 6, eaaz1169, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz1169, 2020. a
Sinet, S., von der Heydt, A. S., and Dijkstra, H. A.: AMOC Stabilization Under the Interaction With Tipping Polar Ice Sheets, Geophys. Res. Lett., 50, e2022GL100305, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL100305, 2023. a, b, c, d
Sinet, S., Ashwin, P., von der Heydt, A. S., and Dijkstra, H. A.: AMOC stability amid tipping ice sheets: the crucial role of rate and noise, Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 859–873, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-859-2024, 2024. a, b, c
Sinet, S., von der Heydt, A. S., and Dijkstra, H. A.: Meltwater from West Antarctic ice sheet tipping affects AMOC resilience, Sci. Adv., 11, eadw3852, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw3852, 2025. a, b, c, d
Steffen, W., Rockström, J., Richardson, K., Lenton, T. M., Folke, C., Liverman, D., Summerhayes, C. P., Barnosky, A. D., Cornell, S. E., Crucifix, M., Donges, J. F., Fetzer, I., Lade, S. J., Scheffer, M., Winkelmann, R., and Schellnhuber, H. J.: Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 115, 8252–8259, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115, 2018. a
Stommel, H.: Thermohaline Convection with Two Stable Regimes of Flow, Tellus, 13, 224–230, https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v13i2.9491, 1961. a
Stouffer, R. J., Seidov, D., and Haupt, B. J.: Climate Response to External Sources of Freshwater: North Atlantic versus the Southern Ocean, J. Climate, 20, 436–448, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI4015.1, 2007. a
Tilman, A. R., Plotkin, J. B., and Akçay, E.: Evolutionary games with environmental feedbacks, Nat. Commun., 11, 915, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14531-6, 2020. a
Van Breedam, J., Goelzer, H., and Huybrechts, P.: Semi-equilibrated global sea-level change projections for the next 10 000 years, Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 953–976, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-953-2020, 2020. a
Virtanen, P., Gommers, R., Oliphant, T. E., Haberland, M., Reddy, T., Cournapeau, D., Burovski, E., Peterson, P., Weckesser, W., Bright, J., van der Walt, S. J., Brett, M., Wilson, J., Millman, K. J., Mayorov, N., Nelson, A. R. J., Jones, E., Kern, R., Larson, E., Carey, C. J., Polat, İ., Feng, Y., Moore, E. W., VanderPlas, J., Laxalde, D., Perktold, J., Cimrman, R., Henriksen, I., Quintero, E. A., Harris, C. R., Archibald, A. M., Ribeiro, A. H., Pedregosa, F., van Mulbregt, P., and SciPy 1.0 Contributors: SciPy 1.0: Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python, Nat. Methods, 17, 261–272, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-019-0686-2, 2020. a
Waibel, M. S., Hulbe, C. L., Jackson, C. S., and Martin, D. F.: Rate of Mass Loss Across the Instability Threshold for Thwaites Glacier Determines Rate of Mass Loss for Entire Basin, Geophys. Res. Lett., 45, 809–816, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076470, 2018. a
Westerhold, T., Marwan, N., Drury, A. J., Liebrand, D., Agnini, C., Anagnostou, E., Barnet, J. S. K., Bohaty, S. M., Vleeschouwer, D. D., Florindo, F., Frederichs, T., Hodell, D. A., Holbourn, A. E., Kroon, D., Lauretano, V., Littler, K., Lourens, L. J., Lyle, M., Pälike, H., Röhl, U., Tian, J., Wilkens, R. H., Wilson, P. A., and Zachos, J. C.: An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years, Science, 369, 1383–1387, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba6853, 2020. a
Wimsatt, W. C.: The Ontology of Complex Systems: Levels of Organization, Perspectives, and Causal Thickets, Can. J. Philos., Supplementary Volume, 20, 207–274, https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.1994.10717400, 1994. a
Winkelmann, R., Dennis, D. P., Donges, J. F., Loriani, S., Klose, A. K., Abrams, J. F., Alvarez-Solas, J., Albrecht, T., Armstrong McKay, D., Bathiany, S., Blasco Navarro, J., Brovkin, V., Burke, E., Danabasoglu, G., Donner, R. V., Drüke, M., Georgievski, G., Goelzer, H., Harper, A. B., Hegerl, G., Hirota, M., Hu, A., Jackson, L. C., Jones, C., Kim, H., Koenigk, T., Lawrence, P., Lenton, T. M., Liddy, H., Licón-Saláiz, J., Menthon, M., Montoya, M., Nitzbon, J., Nowicki, S., Otto-Bliesner, B., Pausata, F., Rahmstorf, S., Ramin, K., Robinson, A., Rockström, J., Romanou, A., Sakschewski, B., Schädel, C., Sherwood, S., Smith, R. S., Steinert, N. J., Swingedouw, D., Willeit, M., Weijer, W., Wood, R., Wyser, K., and Yang, S.: The Tipping Points Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP): Assessing tipping point risks in the Earth system, EGUsphere [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1899, 2025. a
Wunderling, N., Stumpf, B., Krönke, J., Staal, A., Tuinenburg, O. A., Winkelmann, R., and Donges, J. F.: How motifs condition critical thresholds for tipping cascades in complex networks: Linking micro- to macro-scales, Chaos, 30, 043129, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5142827, 2020. a, b, c
Wunderling, N., Krönke, J., Wohlfarth, V., Kohler, J., Heitzig, J., Staal, A., Willner, S., Winkelmann, R., and Donges, J. F.: Modelling nonlinear dynamics of interacting tipping elements on complex networks: the PyCascades package, Eur. Phys. J.-Spec. Top., 230, 3163–3176, https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00155-4, 2021b. a, b, c
Wunderling, N., Winkelmann, R., Rockström, J., Loriani, S., Armstrong McKay, D. I., Ritchie, P. D. L., Sakschewski, B., and Donges, J. F.: Global warming overshoots increase risks of climate tipping cascades in a network model, Nat. Clim. Change, 13, 75–82, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01545-9, 2023. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k
Wunderling, N., von der Heydt, A. S., Aksenov, Y., Barker, S., Bastiaansen, R., Brovkin, V., Brunetti, M., Couplet, V., Kleinen, T., Lear, C. H., Lohmann, J., Roman-Cuesta, R. M., Sinet, S., Swingedouw, D., Winkelmann, R., Anand, P., Barichivich, J., Bathiany, S., Baudena, M., Bruun, J. T., Chiessi, C. M., Coxall, H. K., Docquier, D., Donges, J. F., Falkena, S. K. J., Klose, A. K., Obura, D., Rocha, J., Rynders, S., Steinert, N. J., and Willeit, M.: Climate tipping point interactions and cascades: a review, Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 41–74, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-41-2024, 2024. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, aa
Short summary
When one tipping element collapses the likelihood of another collapsing may be significantly affected. Using our simplified network model, we find that on the whole these interactions destabilise the Earth system, both in the short term and at equilibrium, though the effects are most noticeable after the year 2100. We find that to minimise tipping risks, it is essential to keep temperatures as close as possible to 1.5 °C in the short term and below 1 °C in the longer run.
When one tipping element collapses the likelihood of another collapsing may be significantly...
Special issue
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint