This study assesses climate impacts on the economy and society of the USA, using a model that can downscale impacts to regional scale. The findings are thus both scientifically and policy-relevant.

Tipping points have potentially major detrimental impacts on natural and human systems. This study highlights how the rate of change in external conditions is arguably one of the key tipping mechanisms for both natural and human systems in the human-dominated anthropocene. This notion of rate-induced tipping -- namely an instability that occurs when external conditions vary faster than some critical rate -- will likely become an increasingly important topic of scientific research in the coming years.