The TiPES project has provided crucial new insight regarding potential tipping points in the Earth's system. The project has
- advanced the mathematical theory of tipping points,
- developed new methods to analyse and understand abrupt transitions in past climates,
- improved the understanding of tipping phenomena in state-of-the-art climate models,
- improved warning indicators of forthcoming transitions, and
- discovered that the Amazon Rainforest, the West-central Greenland ice sheet, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation show signs of stability decline consistent with approaching tipping points.
Risk of tipping
Paleoclimate proxy data and theory suggest that rising CO2 levels could trigger tipping points in various Earth systems.
Data from ice cores and speleothems documents several types of past abrupt climate changes, manifesting in pronounced temperature and precipitation shifts with global imprints.
Climate models show that increasing CO2 levels could tip various aspects of the climate system, leading to shifts in precipitation, wind patterns, temperature zones, and ocean currents over decades to centuries. Together with the improved theoretical understanding of feedbacks and nonlinear behavior in the climate system, the paleoclimate evidence suggests that abrupt climate transitions but be triggered by ongoing anthropogenic climate and land-use change.
Abrupt climate transitions could lead to severe ecological, economic, and political impacts. Endemic biospheres such as the Amazon rainforest may be irreversibly damaged. Committing to the loss of the Ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica over hundreds of years or the redistribution of heat in the North Atlantic Ocean over decades will shift sea levels, global weather patterns and monsoon patterns over the coming centuries posing major challenges to ecosystems, agriculture, economy, infrastructure, and human living conditions.
Relevant focus points in the science of climate tipping
The risk of abrupt climate transitions calls for a concise, yet uncertainty-aware assessment of the risks associated with climate tipping points, and the development of early warning systems and mitigation strategies. The TiPES project contributed greatly in advancing the scientific knowledge basis of climate tipping points, regarding the underlying theory, empirical evidence, means to anticipate the crossing of tipping points, and the representation of tipping elements in climate models. To facilitate an increased focus on tipping points, political, economic and scientific stakeholders such as the IPCC and the climate science community have been engaged.
