Publications

Finn Müller-Hansen, Jobst Heitzig, Jonathan Donges, Manoel F. Cardoso, Eloi L. Dalla-Nora, Pedro R. Andrade, Jürgen Kurths, Kirsten Thonicke. 2023. Can intensification of cattle ranching reduce deforestation in the Amazon? Insights from an agent-based social-ecological model. SocArXiv Papers. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/x5q9j

Deforestation in the Amazon with its vast consequences for the ecosystem and climate is largely related to subsequent land use for cattle ranching. In addition to conservation policies, proposals to reduce deforestation include measures to intensify cattle ranching. However, the effects of land-use intensification on deforestation are debated in the literature. This paper introduces the abacra model, a stylized agent-based mod...

Nico Wunderling, Ricarda Winkelmann, Johan Rockström, Sina Loriani, David I. Armstrong McKay, Paul D. L. Ritchie, Boris Sakschewski, Jonathan F. Donges. 2023. Global warming overshoots increase risks of climate tipping cascades in a network model. Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01545-9

Current policies and actions make it very likely, at least temporarily, to overshoot the Paris climate targets of 1.5–<2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels. If this global warming range is exceeded, potential tipping elements such as the Greenland Ice Sheet and Amazon rainforest may be at increasing risk of crossing critical thresholds. This raises the question of how much this risk is amplified by increasing overshoot magnitude...

Smith, E., Eder, C., Donges, J., Heitzig, J., Katsanidou, A., Wiedermann, M., Winkelmann, R.. 2022. Domino Effects in the Earth System – The role of wanted social tipping points. OSF. http://dx.doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/d8scb

Social tipping processes have been identified as potential mechanisms for triggering necessary socio-technical transformations to avoid or mitigate disastrous climate futures. But, the coupling of social and climate systems remains comparatively under-defined. Here, we explore how (anticipated) changes to climate systems can instigate necessary positive transformations within social systems – the wanted social tipping points. ...

Zeitz, M., Haacker, J., Donges, J., Albrecht, T., Winkelmann, R.. 2022. Interacting melt-elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment feedbacks allow for distinct dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheet. EGU. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-9968

Interacting feedbacks play an important role in governing the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet under global warming. Here we study the interaction between the positive melt-elevation feedback and the negative feedback from glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), and how they affect the ice volume of the Greenland Ice Sheet on long time scales. We therefore use the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) coupled to a simple solid Earth...

Wunderling, N., Staal, A., Sakschewski, B., Hirota, M., Tuinenburg, O., Donges, J., Barbosa, H., Winkelmann, R. 2022. Recurrent droughts increase risk of cascading tipping events by outpacing adaptive capacities in the Amazon rainforest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120777119

Tipping elements are nonlinear subsystems of the Earth system that have the potential to abruptly shift to another state if environmental change occurs close to a critical threshold with large consequences for human societies and ecosystems. Among these tipping elements may be the Amazon rainforest, which has been undergoing intensive anthropogenic activities and increasingly frequent droughts. Here, we assess how extreme dev...

Zeitz, M., Haacker, J., Donges, J., Albrecht, T., Winkelmann, R. 2022. Dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheet emerging from interacting melt–elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment feedbacks. Earth System Dynamics. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1077-2022

The stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet under global warming is governed by a number of dynamic processes and interacting feedback mechanisms in the ice sheet, atmosphere and solid Earth. Here we study the long-term effects due to the interplay of the competing melt–elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) feedbacks for different temperature step forcing experiments with a coupled ice-sheet and solid-Earth model. Our...

Kitzmann, N., Romanczuk, P., Wunderling, N., Donges, J. 2022. Detecting contagious spreading of urban innovations on the global city network. The European Physical Journal Special Topics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00470-4

Only a fast and global transformation towards decarbonization and sustainability can keep the Earth in a civilization-friendly state. As hotspots for (green) innovation and experimentation, cities could play an important role in this transition. They are also known to profit from each other’s ideas, with policy and technology innovations spreading to other cities. In this way, cities can be conceptualized as nodes in a globe-s...

Tamberg, L., Heitzig, J., Donges, J. 2022. A modeler’s guide to studying the resilience of social-technical-environmental systems. Environmental Research Letters. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac60d9

The term ‘resilience’ is increasingly being used in Earth system science and other disciplines which study what could be called ‘social-technical-environmental systems’—systems composed of closely interacting social (e.g. economic and political), technical (e.g. energy production infrastructure), and environmental components (e.g. climate and the biosphere). However, the diversity of resilience theories and a certain (intended...

Wunderling, N., Donges, J., Kurths, J., Gelbrecht, M., and Winkelmann, R.: Interactions of climate tipping elements and their associated basin stability in a conceptual model for tipping cascades, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-2941, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-2941, 2021.

With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several climate tipping elements might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies. Here, we study a subset of four tipping elements and their interactions in a conceptual and easily extendable framework: the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional O...

Zeitz, M., Haacker, J., Donges, J., and Winkelmann, R.: Long-term ice loss from Greenland mediated by ice-load bedrock uplift feedback, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16554, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16554, 2021.

Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has significantly accelerated over the past decades, both through enhanced melting as well as the acceleration of outlet glaciers. Positive feedback mechanisms, including the melt-elevation feedback and the ice-albedo feedback, introduce a non- linear evolution and may further accelerate mass loss. Negative feedbacks, such as the feedback between receding ice load and subsequent bedrock ...