Publications

Jonathan F. Donges, Donovan P. Dennis, Sina Loriani, Boris Sakschewski, Nico Wunderling, Ricarda Winkelmann. 2024. Methodologies for climate tipping points analysis and risk assessments in TIPMIP. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18039

The Tipping Point Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP) is an international initiative that aims to systematically improve our understanding of potential tipping dynamics in different components of the Earth system and to assess the associated uncertainties (www.tipmip.org). By linking and evaluating different models through a systematic framework, TIPMIP aims to fill critical knowledge gaps in Earth system and climate ri...

Marta Tuninetti, Vittorio Giordano, Sara Constantino, Saverio Perri, Juan Rocha, Luana Schwarz, Jonathan F. Donges, Francesco Laio, Simon Levin. 2024. Positive Tipping Points in the Food Systems: the Role of Scales. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-22274

The global food system is at a critical inflection point with rising awareness of the need for change and progress on several fronts, pertaining both human health and the environment. One of the ten critical transitions envisioned by the Food and Land Use Coalitions states that global diets need to converge towards local variations of the “human and planetary healthy diet” which includes more protective foods a diverse protein...

Wolfram Barfuss, Jonathan Donges, Matthias Bethge. 2024. Ecologically-mediated collective action in commons with tipping elements. OSF. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/7pcnm

Collective, cooperative action is critical to sustaining the commons safely away from dangerous tipping elements. Previous work has found a variety of mechanisms for the emergence of cooperation through social interactions. Yet, they cannot always work. Here, we present a theory of ecologically-mediated collective action in commons with tipping elements. We show that even without any direct social interactions, commons with ti...

Vitus Benson, Jonathan F Donges, Niklas Boers, Marina Hirota, Andreas Morr, Arie Staal, Jürgen Vollmer, Nico Wunderling. 2024. Measuring tropical rainforest resilience under non-Gaussian disturbances. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad1e80

The Amazon rainforest is considered one of the Earth's tipping elements and may lose stability under ongoing climate change. Recently a decrease in tropical rainforest resilience has been identified globally from remotely sensed vegetation data. However, the underlying theory assumes a Gaussian distribution of forest disturbances, which is different from most observed forest stressors such as fires, deforestation, or windthrow...

Johan Rockström, Louis Kotzé, Svetlana Milutinović, Frank Biermann, Victor Brovkin, Jonathan Donges, Jonas Ebbesson, Duncan French, Joyeeta Gupta, Rakhyun Kim, Timothy Lenton, Dominic Lenzi, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Barbara Neumann, Fabian Schuppert, Ricarda Winkelmann, Klaus Bosselmann, Carl Folke, Wolfgang Lucht, David Schlosberg, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen. 2024. The planetary commons: A new paradigm for safeguarding Earth-regulating systems in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301531121

The Anthropocene signifies the start of a no-analogue trajectory of the Earth system that is fundamentally different from the Holocene. This new trajectory is characterized by rising risks of triggering irreversible and unmanageable shifts in Earth system functioning. We urgently need a new global approach to safeguard critical Earth system regulating functions more effectively and comprehensively. The global commons framework...

Steven Lade. 2024. Safe and just Earth system boundaries. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21091

The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs fo...

Valtteri Aaltonen, Erik Andersson. 2024. How do we make more than human voices heard? Must-project blog.

It usually takes a human to engage with human processes, and to be present more thoroughly in the ongoing negotiations of cohabitation the other-than-humans need people to speak to other humans on behalf of them. Advocates of nature conservation take this role, but also many other people in some way speak on behalf of nature, animals, or urban ecosystems. However, this representation does not mirror the diversity of urban inha...

Jacqueline Otto, Sara Borgström, Dagmar Haase, Erik Andersson. 2024. Capturing residents’ perceptions of green spaces in densifying urban landscapes - the potentials of mental mapping. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2024.128266

Understanding residents’ perceptions of green-blue infrastructure (GBI) is critical to ensure continued access to its associated benefits in growing and densifying urban landscapes. Physical availability and accessibility of green spaces alone do not directly translate to actual appreciation and use. Residents’ sense of place can determine if benefits from GBI are realized and how landscape changes may be perceived. In this st...

Jakub Kronenberg , Erik Andersson, Thomas Elmqvist, Edyta Łaszkiewicz, Jin Xue, Yara Khmara. 2024. Cities, planetary boundaries, and degrowth. The Lancet Planetary Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00025-1

Cities are the main hubs of human activity and the engines of economic growth. In pursuit of such growth, cities are transgressing their local environmental boundaries. Ongoing urbanisation increasingly contributes to the human pressure on planetary boundaries and negatively affects planetary health. In a telecoupled world, cities externalise impacts by shifting production and many other functions away from their boundaries. A...

Bai, X., Hasan, S., Andersen, L.S., Bjørn, A., Kilkiş, Ş., Ospina, D., Liu, J., Cornell, S.E., Sabag Muñoz, O., de Bremond, A., Crona, B., DeClerck, F., Gupta, J., Hoff, H., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Whiteman, G., Broadgate, W., Lade, S.J., Rocha, J., Rockström, J., Stewart-Koster, B., van Vuuren, D., Zimm, C.. 2024. Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01255-w

Operating within safe and just Earth system boundaries requires mobilizing key actors across scale to set targets and take actions accordingly. Robust, transparent and fair cross-scale translation methods are essential to help navigate through the multiple steps of scientific and normative judgements in translation, with clear awareness of associated assumptions, bias and uncertainties. Here, through literature review and expe...