TY - JOUR A1 - Klose, Ann Kristin A1 - Wunderling, Nico A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda A1 - Donges, Jonathan T1 - What do we mean, 'tipping cascade'? JF - Environmental research letters : ERL N2 - Based on suggested interactions of potential tipping elements in the Earth's climate and in ecological systems, tipping cascades as possible dynamics are increasingly discussed and studied. The activation of such tipping cascades would impose a considerable risk for human societies and biosphere integrity. However, there are ambiguities in the description of tipping cascades within the literature so far. Here we illustrate how different patterns of multiple tipping dynamics emerge from a very simple coupling of two previously studied idealized tipping elements. In particular, we distinguish between a two phase cascade, a domino cascade and a joint cascade. A mitigation of an unfolding two phase cascade may be possible and common early warning indicators are sensitive to upcoming critical transitions to a certain degree. In contrast, a domino cascade may hardly be stopped once initiated and critical slowing down-based indicators fail to indicate tipping of the following element. These different potentials for intervention and anticipation across the distinct patterns of multiple tipping dynamics should be seen as a call to be more precise in future analyses of cascading dynamics arising from tipping element interactions in the Earth system. KW - tipping cascade KW - domino effect KW - tipping interactions KW - cascading regime KW - shifts KW - early warning indicators Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3955 SN - 1748-9326 VL - 16 IS - 12 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kretschmer, Marlene A1 - Coumou, Dim A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Runge, Jakob T1 - Using Causal Effect Networks to Analyze Different Arctic Drivers of Midlatitude Winter Circulation JF - Journal of climate N2 - In recent years, the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes have suffered from severe winters like the extreme 2012/13 winter in the eastern United States. These cold spells were linked to a meandering upper-tropospheric jet stream pattern and a negative Arctic Oscillation index (AO). However, the nature of the drivers behind these circulation patterns remains controversial. Various studies have proposed different mechanisms related to changes in the Arctic, most of them related to a reduction in sea ice concentrations or increasing Eurasian snow cover. Here, a novel type of time series analysis, called causal effect networks (CEN), based on graphical models is introduced to assess causal relationships and their time delays between different processes. The effect of different Arctic actors on winter circulation on weekly to monthly time scales is studied, and robust network patterns are found. Barents and Kara sea ice concentrations are detected to be important external drivers of the midlatitude circulation, influencing winter AO via tropospheric mechanisms and through processes involving the stratosphere. Eurasia snow cover is also detected to have a causal effect on sea level pressure in Asia, but its exact role on AO remains unclear. The CEN approach presented in this study overcomes some difficulties in interpreting correlation analyses, complements model experiments for testing hypotheses involving teleconnections, and can be used to assess their validity. The findings confirm that sea ice concentrations in autumn in the Barents and Kara Seas are an important driver of winter circulation in the midlatitudes. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0654.1 SN - 0894-8755 SN - 1520-0442 VL - 29 SP - 4069 EP - 4081 PB - American Meteorological Soc. CY - Boston ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Steffen, Will A1 - Röckstrom, Johan A1 - Richardson, Katherine A1 - Lenton, Timothy M. A1 - Folke, Carl A1 - Liverman, Diana A1 - Summerhayes, Colin P. A1 - Barnosky, Anthony D. A1 - Cornell, Sarah E. A1 - Crucifix, Michel A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Fetzer, Ingo A1 - Lade, Steven J. A1 - Scheffer, Marten A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda A1 - Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim T1 - Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America N2 - We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a "Hothouse Earth" pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System-biosphere, climate, and societies-and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values. KW - Earth System trajectories KW - climate change KW - Anthropocene KW - biosphere feedbacks KW - tipping elements Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115 SN - 0027-8424 VL - 115 IS - 33 SP - 8252 EP - 8259 PB - National Acad. of Sciences CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rockström, Johan A1 - Kotzé, Louis A1 - Milutinović, Svetlana A1 - Biermann, Frank A1 - Brovkin, Victor A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Ebbesson, Jonas A1 - French, Duncan A1 - Gupta, Joyeeta A1 - Kim, Rakhyun A1 - Lenton, Timothy A1 - Lenzi, Dominic A1 - Nakicenovic, Nebojsa A1 - Neumann, Barbara A1 - Schuppert, Fabian A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda A1 - Bosselmann, Klaus A1 - Folke, Carl A1 - Lucht, Wolfgang A1 - Schlosberg, David A1 - Richardson, Katherine A1 - Steffen, Will T1 - The planetary commons BT - a new paradigm for safeguarding earth-regulating systems in the Anthropocene JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America N2 - The Anthropocene signifies the start of a no- analogue tra­jectory of the Earth system that is fundamentally different from the Holocene. This new trajectory is characterized by rising risks of triggering irreversible and unmanageable shifts in Earth system functioning. We urgently need a new global approach to safeguard critical Earth system regulating functions more effectively and comprehensively. The global commons framework is the closest example of an existing approach with the aim of governing biophysical systems on Earth upon which the world collectively depends. Derived during stable Holocene conditions, the global commons framework must now evolve in the light of new Anthropocene dynamics. This requires a fundamental shift from a focus only on governing shared resources beyond national jurisdiction, to one that secures critical functions of the Earth system irrespective of national boundaries. We propose a new framework—the planetary commons—which differs from the global commons frame­work by including not only globally shared geographic regions but also critical biophysical systems that regulate the resilience and state, and therefore livability, on Earth. The new planetary commons should articulate and create comprehensive stewardship obligations through Earth system governance aimed at restoring and strengthening planetary resilience and justice. KW - anthropocene KW - earth system governance KW - global commons KW - international law KW - planetary boundaries Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301531121 SN - 1091-6490 SN - 1877-2014 VL - 121 IS - 5 PB - National Academy of Sciences CY - Washington, DC ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Garbe, Julius A1 - Albrecht, Torsten A1 - Levermann, Anders A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda T1 - The hysteresis of the Antarctic Ice Sheet JF - Nature : the international weekly journal of science N2 - More than half of Earth's freshwater resources are held by the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which thus represents by far the largest potential source for global sea-level rise under future warming conditions(1). Its long-term stability determines the fate of our coastal cities and cultural heritage. Feedbacks between ice, atmosphere, ocean, and the solid Earth give rise to potential nonlinearities in its response to temperature changes. So far, we are lacking a comprehensive stability analysis of the Antarctic Ice Sheet for different amounts of global warming. Here we show that the Antarctic Ice Sheet exhibits a multitude of temperature thresholds beyond which ice loss is irreversible. Consistent with palaeodata(2)we find, using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model(3-5), that at global warming levels around 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, West Antarctica is committed to long-term partial collapse owing to the marine ice-sheet instability. Between 6 and 9 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, the loss of more than 70 per cent of the present-day ice volume is triggered, mainly caused by the surface elevation feedback. At more than 10 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, Antarctica is committed to become virtually ice-free. The ice sheet's temperature sensitivity is 1.3 metres of sea-level equivalent per degree of warming up to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, almost doubling to 2.4 metres per degree of warming between 2 and 6 degrees and increasing to about 10 metres per degree of warming between 6 and 9 degrees. Each of these thresholds gives rise to hysteresis behaviour: that is, the currently observed ice-sheet configuration is not regained even if temperatures are reversed to present-day levels. In particular, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet does not regrow to its modern extent until temperatures are at least one degree Celsius lower than pre-industrial levels. Our results show that if the Paris Agreement is not met, Antarctica's long-term sea-level contribution will dramatically increase and exceed that of all other sources.
Modelling shows that the Antarctic Ice Sheet exhibits multiple temperature thresholds beyond which ice loss would become irreversible, and once melted, the ice sheet can regain its previous mass only if the climate cools well below pre-industrial temperatures. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2727-5 SN - 0028-0836 SN - 1476-4687 VL - 585 IS - 7826 SP - 538 EP - 544 PB - Macmillan Publishers Limited CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Donner, Reik Volker A1 - Trauth, Martin H. A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Nonlinear detection of paleoclimate-variability transitions possibly related to human evolution JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America N2 - Potential paleoclimatic driving mechanisms acting on human evolution present an open problem of cross-disciplinary scientific interest. The analysis of paleoclimate archives encoding the environmental variability in East Africa during the past 5 Ma has triggered an ongoing debate about possible candidate processes and evolutionary mechanisms. In this work, we apply a nonlinear statistical technique, recurrence network analysis, to three distinct marine records of terrigenous dust flux. Our method enables us to identify three epochs with transitions between qualitatively different types of environmental variability in North and East Africa during the (i) Middle Pliocene (3.35-3.15 Ma B. P.), (ii) Early Pleistocene (2.25-1.6 Ma B. P.), and (iii) Middle Pleistocene (1.1-0.7 Ma B. P.). A deeper examination of these transition periods reveals potential climatic drivers, including (i) large-scale changes in ocean currents due to a spatial shift of the Indonesian throughflow in combination with an intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, (ii) a global reorganization of the atmospheric Walker circulation induced in the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean, and (iii) shifts in the dominating temporal variability pattern of glacial activity during the Middle Pleistocene, respectively. A reexamination of the available fossil record demonstrates statistically significant coincidences between the detected transition periods and major steps in hominin evolution. This result suggests that the observed shifts between more regular and more erratic environmental variability may have acted as a trigger for rapid change in the development of humankind in Africa. KW - African climate KW - Plio-Pleistocene KW - climate-driven evolution KW - dynamical transitions KW - nonlinear time series analysis Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1117052108 SN - 0027-8424 VL - 108 IS - 51 SP - 20422 EP - 20427 PB - National Acad. of Sciences CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Siegmund, Jonatan F. A1 - Wiedermann, Marc A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Donner, Reik Volker T1 - Impact of temperature and precipitation extremes on the flowering dates of four German wildlife shrub species JF - Biogeosciences N2 - Ongoing climate change is known to cause an increase in the frequency and amplitude of local temperature and precipitation extremes in many regions of the Earth. While gradual changes in the climatological conditions have already been shown to strongly influence plant flowering dates, the question arises if and how extremes specifically impact the timing of this important phenological phase. Studying this question calls for the application of statistical methods that are tailored to the specific properties of event time series. Here, we employ event coincidence analysis, a novel statistical tool that allows assessing whether or not two types of events exhibit similar sequences of occurrences in order to systematically quantify simultaneities between meteorological extremes and the timing of the flowering of four shrub species across Germany. Our study confirms previous findings of experimental studies by highlighting the impact of early spring temperatures on the flowering of the investigated plants. However, previous studies solely based on correlation analysis do not allow deriving explicit estimates of the strength of such interdependencies without further assumptions, a gap that is closed by our analysis. In addition to direct impacts of extremely warm and cold spring temperatures, our analysis reveals statistically significant indications of an influence of temperature extremes in the autumn preceding the flowering. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5541-2016 SN - 1726-4170 SN - 1726-4189 VL - 13 SP - 5541 EP - 5555 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Donner, Reik Volker A1 - Rehfeld, Kira A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Trauth, Martin H. A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Identification of dynamical transitions in marine palaeoclimate records by recurrence network analysis JF - Nonlinear processes in geophysics N2 - The analysis of palaeoclimate time series is usually affected by severe methodological problems, resulting primarily from non-equidistant sampling and uncertain age models. As an alternative to existing methods of time series analysis, in this paper we argue that the statistical properties of recurrence networks - a recently developed approach - are promising candidates for characterising the system's nonlinear dynamics and quantifying structural changes in its reconstructed phase space as time evolves. In a first order approximation, the results of recurrence network analysis are invariant to changes in the age model and are not directly affected by non-equidistant sampling of the data. Specifically, we investigate the behaviour of recurrence network measures for both paradigmatic model systems with non-stationary parameters and four marine records of long-term palaeoclimate variations. We show that the obtained results are qualitatively robust under changes of the relevant parameters of our method, including detrending, size of the running window used for analysis, and embedding delay. We demonstrate that recurrence network analysis is able to detect relevant regime shifts in synthetic data as well as in problematic geoscientific time series. This suggests its application as a general exploratory tool of time series analysis complementing existing methods. Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-18-545-2011 SN - 1023-5809 VL - 18 IS - 5 SP - 545 EP - 562 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wunderling, Nico A1 - Willeit, Matteo A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda T1 - Global warming due to loss of large ice masses and Arctic summer sea ice JF - Nature Communications N2 - Several large-scale cryosphere elements such as the Arctic summer sea ice, the mountain glaciers, the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet have changed substantially during the last century due to anthropogenic global warming. However, the impacts of their possible future disintegration on global mean temperature (GMT) and climate feedbacks have not yet been comprehensively evaluated. Here, we quantify this response using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. Overall, we find a median additional global warming of 0.43 degrees C (interquartile range: 0.39-0.46 degrees C) at a CO2 concentration of 400 ppm. Most of this response (55%) is caused by albedo changes, but lapse rate together with water vapour (30%) and cloud feedbacks (15%) also contribute significantly. While a decay of the ice sheets would occur on centennial to millennial time scales, the Arctic might become ice-free during summer within the 21st century. Our findings imply an additional increase of the GMT on intermediate to long time scales. The disintegration of cryosphere elements such as the Arctic summer sea ice, mountain glaciers, Greenland and West Antarctica is associated with temperature and radiative feedbacks. In this work, the authors quantify these feedbacks and find an additional global warming of 0.43 degrees C. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18934-3 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Schleussner, C. -F. A1 - Siegmund, Jonatan F. A1 - Donner, Reik Volker T1 - Event coincidence analysis for quantifying statistical interrelationships between event time series JF - European physical journal special topics N2 - Studying event time series is a powerful approach for analyzing the dynamics of complex dynamical systems in many fields of science. In this paper, we describe the method of event coincidence analysis to provide a framework for quantifying the strength, directionality and time lag of statistical interrelationships between event series. Event coincidence analysis allows to formulate and test null hypotheses on the origin of the observed interrelationships including tests based on Poisson processes or, more generally, stochastic point processes with a prescribed inter-event time distribution and other higher-order properties. Applying the framework to country-level observational data yields evidence that flood events have acted as triggers of epidemic outbreaks globally since the 1950s. Facing projected future changes in the statistics of climatic extreme events, statistical techniques such as event coincidence analysis will be relevant for investigating the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on human societies and ecosystems worldwide. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-50233-y SN - 1951-6355 SN - 1951-6401 VL - 225 SP - 471 EP - 487 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zeitz, Maria A1 - Haacker, Jan M. A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Albrecht, Torsten A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda T1 - Dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheet emerging from interacting melt-elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment feedbacks JF - Earth system dynamics N2 - The stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet under global warming is governed by a number of dynamic processes and interacting feedback mechanisms in the ice sheet, atmosphere and solid Earth. Here we study the long-term effects due to the interplay of the competing melt-elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) feedbacks for different temperature step forcing experiments with a coupled ice-sheet and solid-Earth model. Our model results show that for warming levels above 2 degrees C, Greenland could become essentially ice-free within several millennia, mainly as a result of surface melting and acceleration of ice flow. These ice losses are mitigated, however, in some cases with strong GIA feedback even promoting an incomplete recovery of the Greenland ice volume. We further explore the full-factorial parameter space determining the relative strengths of the two feedbacks: our findings suggest distinct dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheets on the route to destabilization under global warming - from incomplete recovery, via quasi-periodic oscillations in ice volume to ice-sheet collapse. In the incomplete recovery regime, the initial ice loss due to warming is essentially reversed within 50 000 years, and the ice volume stabilizes at 61 %-93 % of the present-day volume. For certain combinations of temperature increase, atmospheric lapse rate and mantle viscosity, the interaction of the GIA feedback and the melt-elevation feedback leads to self-sustained, long-term oscillations in ice-sheet volume with oscillation periods between 74 000 and over 300 000 years and oscillation amplitudes between 15 %-70 % of present-day ice volume. This oscillatory regime reveals a possible mode of internal climatic variability in the Earth system on timescales on the order of 100 000 years that may be excited by or synchronized with orbital forcing or interact with glacial cycles and other slow modes of variability. Our findings are not meant as scenario-based near-term projections of ice losses but rather providing insight into of the feedback loops governing the "deep future" and, thus, long-term resilience of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1077-2022 SN - 2190-4979 SN - 2190-4987 VL - 13 IS - 3 SP - 1077 EP - 1096 PB - Copernicus Publ. CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kitzmann, Niklas H. A1 - Romanczuk, Pawel A1 - Wunderling, Nico A1 - Donges, Jonathan T1 - Detecting contagious spreading of urban innovations on the global city network JF - European physical journal special topics N2 - Only a fast and global transformation towards decarbonization and sustainability can keep the Earth in a civilization-friendly state. As hotspots for (green) innovation and experimentation, cities could play an important role in this transition. They are also known to profit from each other's ideas, with policy and technology innovations spreading to other cities. In this way, cities can be conceptualized as nodes in a globe-spanning learning network. The dynamics of this process are important for society's response to climate change and other challenges, but remain poorly understood on a macroscopic level. In this contribution, we develop an approach to identify whether network-based complex contagion effects are a feature of sustainability policy adoption by cities, based on dose-response contagion and surrogate data models. We apply this methodology to an exemplary data set, comprising empirical data on the spreading of a public transport innovation (Bus Rapid Transit Systems) and a global inter-city connection network based on scheduled flight routes. Although our approach is not able to identify detailed mechanisms, our results point towards a contagious spreading process, and cannot be explained by either the network structure or the increase in global adoption rate alone. Further research on the role of a city's abstract "global neighborhood" regarding its policy and innovation decisions is thus both needed and promising, and may connect with research on social tipping processes. The methodology is generic, and can be used to compare the predictive power for innovation spreading of different kinds of inter-city network connections, e.g. via transport links, trade, or co-membership in political networks. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00470-4 SN - 1951-6355 SN - 1951-6401 VL - 231 IS - 9 SP - 1609 EP - 1624 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Zou, Yong A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Complex networks in climate dynamics : comparing linear and nonlinear network construction methods N2 - Complex network theory provides a powerful framework to statistically investigate the topology of local and non- local statistical interrelationships, i.e. teleconnections, in the climate system. Climate networks constructed from the same global climatological data set using the linear Pearson correlation coefficient or the nonlinear mutual information as a measure of dynamical similarity between regions, are compared systematically on local, mesoscopic and global topological scales. A high degree of similarity is observed on the local and mesoscopic topological scales for surface air temperature fields taken from AOGCM and reanalysis data sets. We find larger differences on the global scale, particularly in the betweenness centrality field. The global scale view on climate networks obtained using mutual information offers promising new perspectives for detecting network structures based on nonlinear physical processes in the climate system. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.springerlink.com/content/1951-6355 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2009-01098-2 SN - 1951-6355 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich A1 - Donges, Jonathan A1 - Engemann, Denis A. A1 - Levermann, Anders T1 - Clustered marginalization of minorities during social transitions induced by co-evolution of behaviour and network structure JF - Scientific reports N2 - Large-scale transitions in societies are associated with both individual behavioural change and restructuring of the social network. These two factors have often been considered independently, yet recent advances in social network research challenge this view. Here we show that common features of societal marginalization and clustering emerge naturally during transitions in a co-evolutionary adaptive network model. This is achieved by explicitly considering the interplay between individual interaction and a dynamic network structure in behavioural selection. We exemplify this mechanism by simulating how smoking behaviour and the network structure get reconfigured by changing social norms. Our results are consistent with empirical findings: The prevalence of smoking was reduced, remaining smokers were preferentially connected among each other and formed increasingly marginalized clusters. We propose that self-amplifying feedbacks between individual behaviour and dynamic restructuring of the network are main drivers of the transition. This generative mechanism for co-evolution of individual behaviour and social network structure may apply to a wide range of examples beyond smoking. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/srep30790 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 6 SP - 3407 EP - 3417 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER -