Tipping points in the Anthropocene
Tipping points in the Anthropocene
Editor(s): Axel Kleidon, Jesse Abrams, David Armstrong McKay, Jonathan Donges, Steven Lade, Timothy Lenton, Sina Loriani, Manjana Milkoreit, Ilona M. Otto, Laura Pereira, Tom Powell, Steven R. Smith, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Caroline Zimm

The purpose of the special issue is to review and advance the state of the art of research on tipping points – spanning Earth system tipping points to social tipping points – and to provide underpinning content for the first "Tipping Points Status Report" for COP28 (November 2023). The special issue proposal arises from the "Tipping Points: From Climate Crisis to Positive Transformation" international conference hosted by the Global Systems Institute (GSI) and University of Exeter (12–14 September 2022), as well as the associated creation of a Tipping Points Research Alliance by GSI and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research. It is also inspired by growing worldwide interest in tipping points.

There is a need for improved assessment of both tipping point risks and positive tipping point opportunities. Whilst the recent sixth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began to consider tipping points in the climate system, there is a clear need for a more comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of tipping points across climate and social–economic systems (i.e. all three working groups of IPCC). Positive tipping point opportunities are not widely recognized but could have huge leverage.

The aim of the special issue (and associated "Tipping Points Status Report") is to produce a ground-breaking state-of-knowledge synthesis of tipping point research. We see an important niche for a special issue on the state of both "bad" and "good" tipping points in relation to climate change. The physical science element would update the status of climate and Earth system tipping points. The impacts and adaptation element would update tipping points across climate–ecological–social systems and their cascading interactions. The mitigation element would update the positive tipping points of transformative social–technological–ecological change.

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22 Sep 2023
Rate-induced tipping cascades arising from interactions between the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
Ann Kristin Klose, Jonathan F. Donges, Ulrike Feudel, and Ricarda Winkelmann
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-20,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-20, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
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04 Sep 2023
Negative Social Tipping Dynamics Resulting from and Reinforcing Earth System Destabilisation
Viktoria Spaiser, Sirkku Juhola, Sara M. Constantino, Weisi Guo, Tabitha Watson, Jana Sillmann, Alessandro Craparo, Ashleigh Basel, John T. Bruun, Krishna Krishnamurthy, Jürgen Scheffran, Patricia Pinho, Uche T. Okpara, Jonathan F. Donges, Avit Bhowmik, Taha Yasseri, Ricardo Safra de Campos, Graeme S. Cumming, Hugues Chenet, Florian Krampe, and Jesse F. Abrams
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1475,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1475, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
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04 Sep 2023
Missing the (Tipping) Point: The Role of Climate Tipping Points on Public Risk Perceptions in Norway
Christina Nadeau, Manjana Milkoreit, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, and Dag Olav Hessen
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-23,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-23, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 2 comments)
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04 Sep 2023
Physiological and ecological tipping points caused by ocean acidification
Christopher Cornwall, Steeve Comeau, and Ben Harvey
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-24,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-24, 2023
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04 Sep 2023
Driving sustainability transitions through financial tipping points
Nadia Ameli, Hugues Chenet, Max Falkenberg, Sumit Kothari, Jamie Rickman, and Francesco Lamperti
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1750,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1750, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 1 comment)
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01 Sep 2023
Tipping cascades between conflict and cooperation in climate change
Jürgen Scheffran, Weisi Guo, Florian Krampe, and Uche Okpara
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1766,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1766, 2023
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09 Aug 2023
Multi-fold increase in rainforests tipping risk beyond 1.5–2 °C warming
Chandrakant Singh, Ruud van der Ent, Ingo Fetzer, and Lan Wang-Erlandsson
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1486,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1486, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 1 comment)
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07 Aug 2023
Tipping Point Detection and Early-Warnings in climate, ecological, and human systems
Vasilis Dakos, Chris A. Boulton, Josh E. Buxton, Jesse F. Abrams, David I. Armstrong McKay, Sebastian Bathiany, Lana Blaschke, Niklas Boers, Daniel Dylewsky, Carlos López-Martínez, Isobel Parry, Paul Ritchie, Bregje van der Bolt, Larissa van der Laan, Els Weinans, and Sonia Kéfi
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1773,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1773, 2023
Revised manuscript under review for ESD (discussion: final response, 6 comments)
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04 Aug 2023
Lake ecosystem tipping points and climate feedbacks
Dag Olav Hessen, Tom Andersen, David Armstrong McKay, Sarian Kosten, Mariana Meerhoff, Amy Pickard, and Bryan Spears
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-22,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-22, 2023
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02 Aug 2023
Social tipping dynamics in the energy system
Floor Alkemade, Bart de Bruin, Amira El-Feiaz, Francesco Pasimeni, Leila Niamir, and Robert Wade
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-25,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-25, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: final response, 2 comments)
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01 Aug 2023
Climate tipping point interactions and cascades: A review
Nico Wunderling, Anna 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, Christiano 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
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1576,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1576, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: final response, 4 comments)
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01 Aug 2023
Enabling a political tipping point for rapid decarbonisation in the United Kingdom
Steven R. Smith
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1674,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1674, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
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25 Jul 2023
A global social activation model of enabling conditions for positive social tipping – the role of sea-level rise anticipation and climate change concern
E. Keith Smith, Marc Wiedermann, Jonathan F. Donges, Jobst Heitzig, and Ricarda Winkelmann
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1622,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1622, 2023
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14 Jul 2023
The risky middle of the road – probabilities of triggering climate tipping points and how they increase due to tipping points within the Earth’s carbon cycle
Jakob Emanuel Deutloff, Hermann Held, and Timothy Michael Lenton
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1469,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1469, 2023
Revised manuscript under review for ESD (discussion: final response, 4 comments)
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11 Jul 2023
Risks, Ethics and Justice in the governance of positive tipping points
Laura M. Pereira, Steven R. Smith, Lauren Gifford, Peter Newell, Ben Smith, Sebastian Villasante, Therezah Achieng, Azucena Castro, Sara M. Constantino, Ashish Ghadiali, Coleen Vogel, and Caroline Zimm
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1454,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1454, 2023
Revised manuscript under review for ESD (discussion: final response, 4 comments)
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11 Jul 2023
Equity and Justice should underpin the discourse on Tipping Points
Laura M. Pereira, Ignacio Gianelli, Therezah Achieng, Diva Amon, Sally Archibald, Suchinta Arif, Azucena Castro, Tapiwa Prosper Chimbadzwa, Kaera Coetzer, Tracy-Lynn Field, Odirilwe Selomane, Nadia Sitas, Nicola Stevens, Sebastian Villasante, Mohammed Armani, Duncan M. Kimuyu, Ibukun J. Adewumi, Ashish Ghadiali, David Obura, Patricia Pinho, Felipe Roa-Clavijo, Juan Rocha, and U. Rashid Sumaila
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1455,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1455, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 1 comment)
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11 Jul 2023
The role of agency in social tipping processes
Franziska Gaupp, Sara Constantino, and Laura Pereira
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533, 2023
Preprint under review for ESD (discussion: open, 2 comments)
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05 Jul 2023
Derailment risk: A systems analysis that identifies risks which could derail the sustainability transition
Laurie Laybourn, Joseph Evans, and James G. Dyke
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1459,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1459, 2023
Revised manuscript accepted for ESD (discussion: final response, 4 comments)
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