Overshooting Climate Targets – Increased risks for tipping elements in climate and the biosphere

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Abstract:  In Paris 2015, the global community has agreed to keep global warming levels well below 2.0°C aiming for 1.5°C. However, recent research presented at COP28 in Dubai has shown that overshooting this temperature guardrail is fast becoming inevitable and humanity is quickly running out of credible options to avoid temperatures beyond 1.5°C without an at least temporary overshoot. This endangers critical components of the Earth system, the so-called climate tipping elements such as the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Atlantic Ocean currents, or the Amazon rainforest. In this seminar, I will provide an overview over the latest science regarding climate tipping elements, their interactions, as well as risks for tipping events and cascading transitions under current global warming trajectories. Based on recent research of our group at PIK, I will offer a complex systems and networks view on the vulnerability of climate tipping elements. By doing so, I will put a particular focus on the stability of tropical ecosystems (especially the Amazon rainforest) under global change.