Tipping the ENSO into a permanent El Niño can trigger state transitions in global terrestrial ecosystems

Duque-Villegas, Mateo; Salazar, Juan F.; Rendón, Angela M.

doi:10.5194/esd-10-631-2019

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 129 publications

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“…Further, Greenland was nearly ice-free for extended interglacial periods during the Pleistocene (Schaefer et al, 2016). Sea level reconstructions further suggest that large parts of Greenland could have been ice-free during Marine Isotope Stage 11 and the Pliocene (Dutton et al, 2015).…”

Section: Greenland Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The grounding lines of glaciers in this region are rapidly retreating, which could induce local marine ice sheet instabilities and eventually lead to the disintegration of the entire basin (Mercer, 1978;Weertman, 1974). Palaeoclimate records suggest that parts of Antarctica and larger parts of Greenland might already have experienced strong ice retreat in the past, especially during the Pliocene as well as during Marine Isotope Stage 5e and 11 (Dutton et al, 2015). It has also been shown that the AMOC experienced a significant slowdown since the mid 20th century (Caesar et al, 2018), which has led to the weakest AMOC state in centuries (Caesar et al, 2021).…”

Section: Constraints From Current Observations and Palaeoclimatic Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is likely that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has experienced brief but dramatic retreats during the past 5 Myr (Pollard and DeConto, 2009). Prior collapses have been suggested from deep-seacore isotopes and sea level records (Gasson, 2016;Dutton et al, 2015;Pollard and DeConto, 2005).…”

Section: West Antarctic Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming

et al. 2021

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Abstract. With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies. While the underlying processes are fairly well-understood, it is unclear how their interactions might impact the overall stability of the Earth's climate system. As of yet, this cannot be fully analysed with state-of-the-art Earth system models due to computational constraints as well as some missing and uncertain process representations of certain tipping elements. Here, we explicitly study the effects of known physical interactions among the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Amazon rainforest using a conceptual network approach. We analyse the risk of domino effects being triggered by each of the individual tipping elements under global warming in equilibrium experiments. In these experiments, we propagate the uncertainties in critical temperature thresholds, interaction strengths and interaction structure via large ensembles of simulations in a Monte Carlo approach. Overall, we find that the interactions tend to destabilise the network of tipping elements. Furthermore, our analysis reveals the qualitative role of each of the four tipping elements within the network, showing that the polar ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica are oftentimes the initiators of tipping cascades, while the AMOC acts as a mediator transmitting cascades. This indicates that the ice sheets, which are already at risk of transgressing their temperature thresholds within the Paris range of 1.5 to 2 ∘C, are of particular importance for the stability of the climate system as a whole.

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Section: Greenland Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Constraints From Current Observations and Palaeoclimatic Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming

et al. 2021

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“…It is known from the literature that El-Niño related droughts and other variability patterns affect the stability of the rainforest and tropical vegetation 18,52,53 . If the anomalies associated El-Niño events intensify as projected by CMIP (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) simulations and perturbed physics models 54,55,56 , this would endanger substantial portions of the Amazon basin 57 . However, uncertainties remain whether strong El-Niño events might become more frequent in the future climate 58 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Network dynamics of drought-induced tipping cascades in the Amazon rainforest

Wunderling

Staal

Sakschewski

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Tipping elements are nonlinear subsystems of the Earth system that can potentially abruptly and irreversibly shift if environmental change occurs. Among these tipping elements is the Amazon rainforest, which is threatened by anthropogenic activities and increasingly frequent droughts. Here, we assess how extreme deviations from climatological rainfall regimes may cause local forest-savanna transitions that cascade through the coupled forest-climate system. We develop a dynamical network model to uncover the role of atmospheric moisture recycling in such tipping cascades. We account for the heterogeneity in critical thresholds of the forest caused by adaptation to local climatic conditions. Our results reveal that, despite this adaptation, increased dry-season intensity may trigger tipping events particularly in the southeastern Amazon. Moisture recycling is responsible for one-fourth of the tipping events. If the rate of climate change exceeds the adaptive capacity of some parts of the forest, secondary effects through moisture recycling may exceed this capacity in other regions, increasing the overall risk of tipping across the Amazon rainforest.

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“…Global warming scenarios and recent evidence suggest a large potential for spatio-temporal changes in the surface water balance and the consequent intensification of the global water cycle (Giorgi, 2006;Lau and Wu, 2007;Diffenbaugh and Giorgi, 2012;Huntington, 2016;Rifai et al, 2019;Stevens et al, 2019). Both observed and projected changes are characterized by abrupt shifts between aboveaverage rainfall and prolonged drought periods often exacerbated by El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections (Khouakhi et al, 2017;Stephens et al, 2018;Boers et al, 2019;Duque-Villegas et al, 2019;Roderick et al, 2019). Moreover, predicted scenarios suggest warm ENSOlike conditions (Vecchi and Soden, 2007;Zheng et al, 2019) and evidence of the role of ENSO in the enhancement of the carbon cycle (Knutson and Manabe, 1994;Kim et al, 2017) rises concern over a potential acceleration of warming.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracing Water Sources and Fluxes in a Dynamic Tropical Environment: From Observations to Modeling

et al. 2020

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Tropical regions cover approximately 36% of the Earth's landmass. These regions are home to 40% of the world's population, which is projected to increase to over 50% by 2030 under a remarkable climate variability scenario often exacerbated by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other climate teleconnections. In the tropics, ecohydrological conditions are typically under the influence of complex land-oceanatmosphere interactions that produce a dynamic cycling of mass and energy reflected in a clear partition of water fluxes. Here, we present a review of 7 years of a concerted and continuous water stable isotope monitoring across Costa Rica, including key insights learned, main methodological advances and limitations (both in experimental designs and data analysis), potential data gaps, and future research opportunities with a humid tropical perspective. The uniqueness of the geographic location of Costa Rica within the mountainous Central America Isthmus, receiving moisture inputs from the Caribbean Sea (windward) and the Pacific Ocean (complex leeward topography), and experiencing strong ENSO events, poses a clear advantage for the use of isotopic variations to underpin key drivers in ecohydrological responses. In a sequential approach, isotopic variations are analyzed from moisture transport, rainfall generation, and groundwater/surface connectivity to Bayesian and rainfall-runoff modeling. The overarching goal of this review is to provide a robust humid tropical example with a progressive escalation from common water isotope observations to more complex modeling outputs and applications to enhance water resource management in the tropics.

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Tipping the ENSO into a permanent El Niño can trigger state transitions in global terrestrial ecosystems

Cited by 17 publications

References 129 publications

Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming

Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming

Network dynamics of drought-induced tipping cascades in the Amazon rainforest

Tracing Water Sources and Fluxes in a Dynamic Tropical Environment: From Observations to Modeling

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