Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe: review of the current state of six ‘tipping elements of the climate system’

Levermann, Anders; Bamber, Jonathan L.; Drijfhout, Sybren; Ganopolski, Andrey; Haeberli, Winfried; Harris, Neil R. P.; Huss, Matthias; Krüger, Kirstin; Lenton, Timothy M.; Lindsay, Ronald W.; Notz, Dirk; Wadhams, Peter; Weber, Susanne

doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0126-5

Back

Journal article

Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe: review of the current state of six ‘tipping elements of the climate system’

Levermann, Anders Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany - University of Potsdam, Germany
Bamber, Jonathan L. University of Bristol, UK
Drijfhout, Sybren Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, The Netherlands
Ganopolski, Andrey Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
Haeberli, Winfried University of Zurich, Switzerland
Harris, Neil R. P. European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit, Department of Chemistry, Cambridge University, UK
Huss, Matthias University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Krüger, Kirstin Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany
Lenton, Timothy M. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, UK
Lindsay, Ronald W. University o fWashington, Seattle, USA
Notz, Dirk Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany
Wadhams, Peter Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, UK
Weber, Susanne Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, The Netherlands

17.06.2011

Published in:

Climatic Change. - 2011, vol. 110, no. 3-4, p. 845-878

English We discuss potential transitions of six climatic subsystems with large-scale impact on Europe, sometimes denoted as tipping elements. These are the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, Arctic sea ice, Alpine glaciers and northern hemisphere stratospheric ozone. Each system is represented by co-authors actively publishing in the corresponding field. For each subsystem we summarize the mechanism of a potential transition in a warmer climate along with its impact on Europe and assess the likelihood for such a transition based on published scientific literature. As a summary, the ‘tipping’ potential for each system is provided as a function of global mean temperature increase which required some subjective interpretation of scientific facts by the authors and should be considered as a snapshot of our current understanding.

Faculty

Faculté des sciences et de médecine

Department

Département de Géosciences

Language