Tripping over tipping points/elements

Excerpt

The term “tipping point” has been used to identify a critical threshold susceptible to a tiny perturbation that can qualitatively alter the state or development of a system. “Tipping element” has been introduced to describe large-scale components of the Earth system that may pass a tipping point. A special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States (PNAS) recently focused on Tipping Elements in Earth Systems has examined potential policy-relevant tipping elements in the climate system with anthropogenic forcing. Subjects such as the evaluation of El Nino/southern oscillation response to global warming, irreversible ice sheet retreat and unstoppable loss, and climate change induced Amazon rainforest dieback were presented in this special issue. An earlier PNAS research article investigated the imprecision of probability assessments of tipping points identified for the global climate system. …