Navigating Tipping Points: Definitions and Implications for Climate Science

11 October 14:00-15:30 CEST

Navigating Tipping Points: Definitions and Implications for Climate Science

Join AIMES, the Earth Commission, Future Earth, and the WCRP Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity for a webinar on Definitions. In this webinar, we’ll examine the concept of "tipping points" in climate science—a term frequently used to describe nonlinear system responses but often with vague or inconsistent definitions. We’ll explore whether a unified, precise definition is necessary and what it should look like.

Additionally, we’ll discuss the broad application of "tipping points" across disciplines, from climate dynamics to societal impacts, and consider if more specific terms might better capture these phenomena. We’ll also evaluate the effectiveness of "tipping points" in public communication and its impact on public understanding and decision-making.

Join us as we delve into these critical questions and seek to clarify the role of tipping points in climate science and communication.

Presentations

Vasilis Dakos (University of Montpellier) What are and what are not tipping points?
Sebastian Bathiany (TU Munich) How should scientists define "tipping point", and should they even care?
Robert Kopp (Rutgers University) Can climate tipping points be usefully defined?
Q&A/ Discussion

Moderated by Elisabeth Krueger (University of Amsterdam)

The recording is available below:

Back to series overview.

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Speakers

Vasilis Dakos
University of Montpellier

Vasilis is a senior researcher (CR1) in the BioDICée team in the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier (ISEM) at CNRS (the French National Scientific Research Centre).

He is broadly interested in ecological stability, tipping points, and how eco-evolutionary feedbacks may affect ecosystem resilience under global change. In particular, his research focuses on the emerging topic of indicators for resilience (or early-warning signals) for critical transitions in complex systems.

Sebastian Bathiany
Technical University of Munich

Sebastian Bathiany is a meteorologist and climate scientist by training. His research interests include “tipping points” and the interaction between the atmosphere and the Earth‘s surface (in particular, concerning vegetation dynamics). Sebastian uses approaches informed by dynamical systems theory, time series analysis and complex Earth system models. He also has a special passion for creative forms of science communication.

Robert Kopp
Rutgers University

Robert Kopp is a climate scientist who serves at Rutgers University as a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. He directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a National Science Foundation-funded consortium that advances coastal climate adaptation and the scientific understanding of natural and human coastal climate dynamics. He is also a founding principal investigator of the Climate Impact Lab, a multi-institutional collaborating advancing data-driven approaches to estimating the social and human costs of climate change. Professor Kopp’s research focuses on past and future sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, the use of climate risk information to inform decision-making, and the role of higher education in supporting societal climate risk management. He was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent (2021) Sixth Assessment Report. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow.

Elisabeth Krueger
(Moderator) University of Amsterdam

Elisabeth Krueger is an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, and the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. Her research and teaching focuses on understanding how infrastructure and institutions shape human-environment interactions, as well as potential synergies and tradeoffs between meeting societal needs (e.g., water, food, energy) and human livelihoods, ensuring resilience to shocks, and the sustainability of urban provisioning systems from local to global scales. She uses complex adaptive systems methods and social-ecological(-technological) systems approaches in both her research and her teaching.

All you need to know

This event is part of a series of online discussions aims to advance the knowledge about tipping elements, irreversibility, and abrupt changes in the Earth system. It supports efforts to increase consistency in treatment of tipping elements in the scientific community, develop a research agenda, and design joint experiments and ideas for a Tipping Element Model Intercomparison Project (TipMip).

This discussion series is a joint activity of the Analysis, Integration, and Modeling of the Earth System (AIMES) global research project of Future Earth, the Earth Commission Working Group 1 Earth and Human Systems Intercomparison Modelling Project (EHSMIP) under the Global Commons Alliance and the Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity of World Climate Research Program (WCRP).

Organized by

Analysis, Integration, and Modeling of the Earth System (AIMES)

The Analysis, Integration, and Modeling of the Earth System (AIMES) project is an international network of Earth system scientists and scholars that seek to develop innovative, interdisciplinary ways to understand the complexity of the natural world and its interactions with human activities. AIMES is a global research project of Future Earth.

Earth Commission

The Earth Commission is a major scientific assessment, hosted by Future Earth, to define a safe and just corridor for people and planet. The Commission will inform the creation of science-based targets, the “1.5-degree equivalents”, to help maintain and protect critical global commons – our shared climate, land, biodiversity, freshwater, atmosphere and oceans. The Earth Commission is an international team of leading natural and social scientists and five working groups of additional experts. It forms the scientific cornerstone of the Global Commons Alliance.

Future Earth

Future Earth is a global network of scientists, researchers, and innovators collaborating for a more sustainable planet. Future Earth initiates and supports international collaboration between researchers and stakeholders to identify and generate the integrated knowledge needed for successful transformations towards societies that provide good and fair lives for all within a stable and resilient Earth system. Future Earth is the host of the Earth Commission.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)is an international research institute that advances systems analysis and applies its research methods to identify policy solutions to reduce human footprints, enhance the resilience of natural and socioeconomic systems, and help achieve the sustainable development goals.

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is advancing the frontier of integrated research for global sustainability, and for a safe and just climate future. A member of the Leibniz Association, the institute is based in Potsdam, Brandenburg and connected with the global scientific community. Drawing on excellent research, PIK provides relevant scientific advice for policy decision-making. The institute’s international staff of about 400 is led by a committed interdisciplinary team of Directors.

University of Exeter, Global Systems Institute

The Global Systems Institute (GSI) is thought-leading in understanding global changes, solving global challenges and helping create a flourishing future world together, through transformative research, education and impact. GSI's aim is to work with others to secure a flourishing future for humanity as an integral part of a life-sustaining Earth system. GSI's aim to be a ‘go to’ place for global change researchers from around the world, bringing them together with industry, policymakers, students and other stakeholders to tackle shared problems, and acting as a catalyst that enables translation of this research into applications that deliver tangible and sustainable social and ecological benefit.

WCRP Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity.

The Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity is an exploration of the routes to “safe landing” spaces for human and natural systems. It will explore future pathways that avoid dangerous climate change while at the same time contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those of climate action, zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, good health and well-being, affordable and clean energy, and healthy ecosystems above and below water. The relevant time scale is multi-decadal to millennial.

World Climate Research Programme

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) leads the way in addressing frontier scientific questions related to the coupled climate system — questions that are too large and too complex to be tackled by a single nation, agency or scientific discipline. Through international science coordination and partnerships, WCRP contributes to advancing our understanding of the multi-scale dynamic interactions between natural and social systems that affect climate.