Exploring Tipping Points and Their Impacts Using Earth System Models

Project Information

TipESM

Grant agreement ID: 101137673

DOI

10.3030/101137673

EC signature date 24 October 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 4 864 470,59

Coordinated by

DANMARKS METEOROLOGISKE INSTITUT
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TipESM (Exploring Tipping Points and Their Impacts Using Earth System Models)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

TipESM brings together scientists from different disciplines to advance our understanding of climate tipping points (TPs), their impacts on ecosystems and society, and to develop a set of early warning indicators and safe emission pathways that reduce the risk of crossing them. TipESM assembles the latest Earth System Models (ESMs), including recent improvements to ice sheets, vegetation and land use, permafrost, and marine and terrestrial biogeochemistry. In cooperation with Tipping Points Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP), TipESM develops and executes an ESM experiment protocol to analyze the likelihood of occurrence and potential reversibility of tipping elements at different levels and duration of global warming. Additional targeted experiments investigate interactions and feedbacks across the Earth system. TipESM combines expertise in climate science and impacts to study how climate change drives ecosystem tipping and how crossing TPs affects society (e.g. poverty, displacement), ecosystems (e.g. marine ecosystems), and biodiversity (e.g. great ape populations). This information will be synthesised into a TP risk register, aligned with the broader efforts for such a tool in the climate science community.
New knowledge and data from TipESM are regularly shared with research communities, policymakers and the public, contributing to a prepared and resilient society.

There are large uncertainties in the current understanding of TPs and their simulation in ESMs is needed for further investigation. TipESM develops a shared protocol for sets of ESM experiments to investigate the occurrence of tipping elements at different levels of global warming. This work builds on the EU-Horizon project OptimESM and is closely linked to the World Climate Research Programme - specifically with its Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and TIPMIP. The enhanced ensemble ESM simulations provide climate and impact modelling researchers with tools to investigate how TPs affect climate, ecosystems and society. Based on these simulations, TipESM investigates TPs and their driving processes, early warning signals and cascading effects within the climate system. TipESM also assesses how incremental climate change influences TPs and what crossing them would mean for societies and ecosystems, supporting improved adaptation strategies. Finally, TipESM aims at advancing the Adaptive Emission Reduction Approach (AERA) in ESMs, enabling the delivery of safe mitigation pathways.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In this reporting period, significant progress was made in development and realisation of a coupled ESM experiment protocol for the international TIPMIP project in coordination with the ESM groups worldwide. The designed Tier 1 experiments have been completed by participating ESMs and the data start to be now available to researchers in and outside the project for analysis. A catalogue of abrupt changes and state transitions in physical and biogeochemical systems was established by systematic applications of the framework for identifying dramatic changes to the existing ESM simulations in CMIP phase 6 (CMIP6). Further studies investigated the processes behind the identified tipping phenomena and the early warning signals, with a focus on the AMOC, sea ice, Greenland ice sheet, and marine biogeochemistry. A first framework of emergent constraint was developed to identify tipping elements while accounting for observational and model uncertainties. Further development is planned to integrate the project’s new results. Investigation of TP interactions and cascades was discussed, and various coordinated analyses have been planned. TipESM advanced the research on climate-induced TPs in ecological and societal systems. Models covering nine different subsystems across terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and social systems are being developed to identify the climate thresholds critical to these systems. In parallel, impact models addressing coastal and storm surge risks, human heat stress, food systems, Amazon and tropical vegetation, and infectious diseases are further advanced and evaluated. These models are now being applied to a range of climate change simulations.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

TipESM has designed and performed fully coupled ESM experiments that can foster standardized assessments of tipping dynamics across multiple components of the Earth system in atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere in the multi-model ensemble. The ensemble data from these experiments enable systematic investigations of interactions and feedbacks between tipping elements, as well as the thresholds that can trigger tipping in a system. The project develops catalogues of abrupt changes and state transitions through screening the physical and biogeochemical components in the existing CMIP experiments, delivering new knowledge regarding the tipping risk in the Earth system. Furthermore, TipESM addresses the threshold for ecological and societal systems to tip and the impact of abrupt climate change on these systems, directly advancing the knowledge of climate interaction in the Earth system.

TipESM workflow

TipESM concept