Work Package 5: Critical transitions in the climate system
A tipping point in climate studies is a point in time where the Earth’s climate behaves in an unexpected way. The rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations may lead to such tipping point in the next century. In Work Package 5 we aim to identify situations where feedbacks may lead to tipping points, so we can develop early warning signal recognition.

In the distant past, many tipping points have occurred. With the comprehensive proxy record dataset we develop in Work package 2, we plan to identify major tipping points and analyse whether early warning signals preceded. At the same time we will develop methodology to compute tipping points in Earth System models, the critical conditions and the feedbacks responsible.

Contact person: prof. dr. Marten Scheffer