Proximity to Tipping Points

Proximity to tipping points

COP21 successfully negotiated a target to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C of warming in order to prevent 'dangerous climate change' limit of 2°C. Lenton and Schellnhuber (2007) attempted to relate IPCC climate change scenarios to multiple tipping elements. The figure shows policy relevant tipping elements which are elements which may exhibit tipping behaviour in the future for a 1.1-6.4°C warming. It is interesting to learn that the three major tipping points covered (Arctic, Amazon and THC) can possibly be triggered this century under three different warming trajectory (1-2°C, 3°C and >4°C). It is evident that even the widely used 2°C limit may not prevent the tipping of some elements and that societal tipping points (this post) - drastic technological and societal shift to a carbon-free economy is needed.

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While the number of 2°C is widely debated and deserves its own blog, it is essential that one looks beyond this number as the 2°C number is more of a political construct than a binary threshold/tipping point as defined in this blog. Obsessing over a symbolic 'end goal' for climate change not only detracts from public understanding but also fails to promote mitigation and fails to understand the reality by which anthropogenic activities are edging components of the earth system towards tipping behaviour (Knutti et.al. 2015). Although the few tipping points featured in detail in this blog mostly derived from increasing GHG emissions, they are not the only forcing to induce tipping behaviour (eg. aerosol emissions forcing re-organization of the Indian Monsoon and landscape fragmentation for regional terrestrial tipping points). Furthermore, it must be recognized that the tipping of one element may promote/induce rapid tipping behaviour of a different but positively connected element. Additionally, due to the inherent inertia and the non-linearity of different climate and biosphere systems as explored in this blog, it is probable that some tipping points may already have been surpassed but its impacts not yet fully realised. 

This feels like a good place to end my blogging journey. In the next post, I will reflect on major environmental news in 2016 and provide some reflections on the lessons learnt in the past 3 months.

Tipping Point III - Amazon Dieback

Welcome back! In this post, I will look at a probable ecological (terrestrial biosphere) tipping point with potentially subcontinental to global impacts. The most notable tipping element under continual anthropogenic greenhouse gas induced warming would be a significant and relatively rapid dieback of the Amazonian rainforest. There is no better case study than a possible Amazon dieback to illustrate the widespread impacts of humans to the biosphere and the global cascading effects a collapse of local ecosystem may be capable of inducing.

Characterizing planetary tipping points within the biosphere, Barnosky et.al. 2012 argued that based on the characteristics of historical planetary tipping points, present day anthropogenic forcings are capable of causing an ever-increasing number of local-scale tipping points which will trigger transitions across a critical threshold over a larger area than the originally affected region (such as an Amazonian dieback) and eventually contribute to a global scale regime shift. 

Amazonian Dieback

The general health and ecosystem functioning (provision and delivery of ecosystem services) of tropical rainforests  are increasingly affected and dominated by anthropogenic activities and anthropogenically induced climate change (Lewis et.al. 2015). The Amazonian rainforest is the richest and most important region on Earth in terms of biodiversity and biogeochemical flows. It is currently increasingly subjected to human activities which has fundamentally altered the Amazonian landscape. It is with this alarming notion in mind when scientists proposed the possibility of a transition to a less biodiverse 'savannah' state if continually subjected to landscape stress and anthropogenic induced climate change (Blaustein 2011). When a certain threshold of biomass loss is passed, a much larger area of the Amazonian rainforest would be affected and would subsequently irreversibly transform into an impoverished state. Impacts of this may be subcontinental - the loss of the world's most biodiverse rainforest, or global - through the release of stored carbon (90-120 billion metric tonnes - 50% of tropical forest carbon!), thus capable of regulating global climate with potentially catastrophic effects on other tipping points (ice sheets stability, precipitation and evapotranspiration). 

Trajectories of change in rainfall regime using multi-model GCM approach.
Greyscale background indicates relationship between precipitation, water deficit and vegetation state

The Amazon had experienced previous episodes of extreme droughts in the past, most notably being the 2005 drought (the worst drought on record) and more recently, a dry episode in 2010. These droughts are increasingly seen as analogues for future events to assess potential response of the rainforest to extreme weather (caused by anthropogenic climate change) coupled with increasing landscape stress. Using multiple GCMs, Malhi et.al. 2009 modelled changes in the rainfall regime and concluded that a significant dry-season water stress is prevalent across the 21st century. Increased length of dry season and increased annual water demand, critical threshold needed to sustain seasonal forest instead of savannas are the two main causes of a transition to savannah states. Recent research also suggested a graded, spatially heterogenous transition from accumulation of water stress conditions of individual plants (Levine et.al. 2016). Interactions between deforestation and removal of forest cover, modification of local climate and presence of fire may also contribute significantly to a possible abrupt shift in vegetative state. 

Biosphere Tipping Points

In this post, I aim to distinguish between arguments and propositions for global planetary scale ecological tipping points and local, sub-continental/regional tipping points and whether one causes the other.

Local vs Global

In true geography fashion, no issue is resolved without discussing scale. The majority of recent scientific studies have pointed to the presence of global, planetary scale climatic state shifts with catastrophic consequences, as epitomised by the planetary boundaries concept. However, questions have been raised on whether genuinely global tipping points are scientifically probable and whether non-climatic elements (eg. terrestrial and ecological systems) can have global scale tipping points. Listed below are main characteristics for planetary  tipping points:

1) The magnitude, extent and rates of present global forcings (human population growth, energy consumption, climate change) initiated by anthropogenic activities have surpassed global forcings which caused past global state shifts (Barnosky et.al.2012)

2) Planetary scale tipping points originate from the accumulation of local system behaviour where local scale forcings propagate through scales to cause global state shifts (Steffen et.al. 2011)

3) Planetary tipping points may not contain early warning signs or trajectory may be smoothed out despite impending critical thresholds (Scheffer et.al. 2009)

4) Internal evolutionary events causing changes on a global scale (Lenton and Williams 2013)

5) Global tipping points may not be synchronous or sudden. Internal inertia may cause incremental and gradual change relative to human timescales. Speed and abruptness should not be criterion for global tipping points (Hughes et.al. 2013).

While it is established that local ecological and biological systems have had tipping points, there have been substantial arguments against the presence of planetary scale thresholds:

1) Unlikely due to high spatial heterogeneity and low connectivity within regions of the biosphere. Global forcings unlikely to cause synchronous tipping due to spatial heterogeneity of and differing environmental impacts between local regions (Brook et.al. 2013)

• Eg. landscape fragmentation from the building of roads in which current roadless areas are fragmented into >600,000 patches at the expense of terrestrial biodiversity (Ibish et.al. 2016)

2) Most proposed planetary tipping points does not have genuinely global biophysical boundaries Global limits may limit local/regional action (Blomqvist et.al. 2012) 

3) Dichotomy thinking of 'safe' and catastrophic in planetary tipping points may encourage inaction and may distract from fundamental local regime shifts and biological change (Brook et.al. 2013)

In the next post, I will look at the possibility of an Amazon dieback. After that, I will conclude the blog by looking at present-day anthropogenic forcing.

Learning from the past...

The presence of tipping points are not new and examples of crossing critical thresholds are plentiful in Earth's long history. It is highly conceivable that comparable high impact regime shifts are increasingly probable in the future due to human forcing. In this week's post, I will look back in Earth's long history and discuss some of the tipping points and abrupt climate and biosphere changes.

Ancient tipping points

Abrupt Climate Change

Widespread, global in scale and abrupt climate change occurred repeatedly in the past when tipping point dynamics were evident in the Earth system through geological and paleoclimatic records.

Glaciation

Glacial-interglacial transitions between multiple stable states of the climate system are an example of past abrupt climate shifts with global impacts. Triggers for these abrupt climatic oscillations were attributed mainly to orbital forcing (Milankovitch cycles; the eccentricity, obliquity and precession of the Earth's orbit). Warming prior to transition into an interglacial period is often abrupt and exceeds magnitude of solar radiation variations. This is due to positive feedback loops of ice-albedo relationships and atmospheric CO2 when stored CO2 are released and reinforces warming. Similarly, abrupt shifts within glacial periods are also evident. D-O and Heinrich events characterizes these shifts and represents a critical transition between warm-cold states. Dansgaard-Oescheger (D-O) events are rapid warming episodes in the last glacial period (happened 25 times!) while Heinrich events are intensely cold periods in between D-O cycles (Ahn and Brook 2008).

Younger Dryas

Possibly the most well-known example of abrupt climate change, the Younger Dryas event 14,500 years ago saw global climate abruptly shift to near-glacial conditions in a period when the world is gradually shifting to an interglacial warm state. It is largely recognized that increased freshwater discharge in the North Atlantic from Lake Aggaiz and subsequent impacts on the thermohaline circulation was a major cause of the abrupt shift. However, the forcing causing additional freshwater input is still debated (Carlson 2010) as the outlet of Lake Aggaiz may have remained closed until after the onset of the Younger Dryas with other sources such as meltwater or bollide impacts are notable contenders.

Desertification of N.Africa

Widespread areas of North Africa and the current Sahara Desert were 'green' and were covered with vegetation and lakes until abrupt desertification marking the end of the green and wet phase around 4.5 kyr ago. Green Sahara was mainly attributed to changes in the Earth's orbit and tilt resulting in the solar irradiation and intensification of the African summer monsoon. However, positive preciptiation-vegetation feedback loops also amplifies monsoon, causes radiative cooling and suppresses convective precipitation, encouraging the spread of Sahelian vegetation and desert conditions (Claussen 2008). It is debatable whether the desertification occurred abruptly with singular aridification events or on gradual timescales from accumulation of local changes across inhomogeneous land surface (Bathiany et.al. 2016). 

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Ecological Change

Tipping points in ecological systems are less clear as it is often hard and controversial to discern between ecological change as a consequence of critical threshold or as part of the tipping mechanism (Lenton and Williams 2013). There are also widespread debate over whether tipping points in the biosphere can be truly planetary in scale. Nonetheless, there has been well documented abrupt changes in the terrestrial biosphere.  

Mass Extinctions

There has been 5 mass extinctions in Earth's history with widespread extinctions occurring abruptly over short timescales. Major biotic changes can be self-reinforcing through trophic cascades after initial forcings from climate change or volcanism. There has been repeated episodes of loss in >75% of species on Earth and fundamental reorgnizations of biota (Barnosky et.al. 2012). Having said that, tipping points in ecological systems need not require climate feedbacks to occur and can occur through intrinsic thresholds and internal feedbacks (eg. changes to predator-prey dynamics) and self-propagation (Seekell 2016).

Are we causing the 6th mass extinction?

Cambrian Explosion

Global scale re-organization of biota ~540 million years ago with the explosion in and dominance of complex multicellular organisms over single celled microbes. This was attributed to crossing a critical oxygen level threshold (de-oxygenation) which encouraged genetic complexity and sustained metabolic processes.

Evolutionary tipping points

Another possible category of ancient tipping points lies with evolution and is based on the fact that evolutionary adaptations and changes can result in abrupt changes global in scale. Evolution of new traits, speciation and adaptive radiation can all contribute to internal dynamics which tips ecosystem to an alternative state (Williams and Lenton 2010). Examples of this may include evolution of traits in oxygenic photosynthesis which may have caused the Great Oxidation event (~2.3 billion years ago) which caused mass extinction and a transition to 'snowball Earth' glaciation period (Lenton and Williams 2013).

This also raises the question on whether the Anthropocene can be characterized as an evolutionary tipping point on a global scale. Global forcings in the present day include intense population growth, resource consumption, land fragmentation and climate change. All of which are already causing observable response from biota in the biosphere and the respective magnitude of change far exceeds forcings seen in past abrupt ecological shifts (Barnosky et.al. 2012).

It is very interesting to see strikingly similar parallels in system responses (eg. AMOC freshening, Arctic ice melting, marine dead zones etc.) in play in the present day. Past abrupt shifts provide an analogy for causes of shifts and possible system response in the future.