Publications

Wiedermann, M., Smith, E.K., Heitzig, J., Donges, J. et al. 2020. A network-based microfoundation of Granovetter’s threshold model for social tipping. Sci Rep 10, 11202 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67102-6

Social tipping, where minorities trigger larger populations to engage in collective action, has been suggested as one key aspect in addressing contemporary global challenges. Here, we refine Granovetter’s widely acknowledged theoretical threshold model of collective behavior as a numerical modelling tool for understanding social tipping processes and resolve issues that so far have hindered such applications. Based on real-wor...

Wunderling, N., Willeit, M., Donges, J.F. et al. 2020. Global warming due to loss of large ice masses and Arctic summer sea ice. Nat Commun 11, 5177 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18934-3

Several large-scale cryosphere elements such as the Arctic summer sea ice, the mountain glaciers, the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet have changed substantially during the last century due to anthropogenic global warming. However, the impacts of their possible future disintegration on global mean temperature (GMT) and climate feedbacks have not yet been comprehensively evaluated. Here, we quantify this response using a...

Naidu, P.D., Ganeshram, R., Bollasina, M.A. et al. 2020. Coherent response of the Indian Monsoon Rainfall to Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability over the last 2000 years. Sci Rep 10, 1302 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58265-3

Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) rainfall has a direct effect on the livelihoods of two billion people in the Indian-subcontinent. Yet, our understanding of the drivers of multi-decadal variability of the ISM is far from being complete. In this context, large-scale forcing of ISM rainfall variability with multi-decadal resolution over the last two millennia is investigated using new records of sea surface salinity (δ 18 Ow) and s...

Otto, I.M., Donges, J.F., Cremades, R., Bhowmik, A., Hewitt, R.J. et.al. 2020. Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan 2020, 201900577; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900577117

Achieving a rapid global decarbonization to stabilize the climate critically depends on activating contagious and fast-spreading processes of social and technological change within the next few years. Drawing on expert elicitation, an expert workshop, and a review of literature, which provides a comprehensive analysis on this topic, we propose concrete interventions to induce positive social tipping dynamics and a rapid global...

T. Ide, M. Brzoska, J.F. Donges, and C.-F. Schleussner. 2020. Multi-method evidence for when and how climate-related disasters contribute to armed conflict risk. Global Environmental Change Volume 62, May 2020, 102063

Climate-related disasters are among the most societally disruptive impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Their potential impact on the risk of armed conflict is heavily debated in the context of the security implications of climate change. Yet, evidence for such climate-conflict-disaster links remains limited and contested. One reason for this is that existing studies do not triangulate insights from different methods and p...

Zou, Y., Donner, R.V., Marwan, N., Donges, J.F., Kurths, J. 2019. Complex network approaches to nonlinear time series analysis. Physics Reports, Volume 787, 21 January 2019, Pages 1-97

In the last decade, there has been a growing body of literature addressing the utilization of complex network methods for the characterization of dynamical systems based on time series. While both nonlinear time series analysis and complex network theory are widely considered to be established fields of complex systems sciences with strong links to nonlinear dynamics and statistical physics, the thorough combination of both a...

Barfuss, W., Donges, J.F., Kurths, J. 2019. Deterministic limit of temporal difference reinforcement learning for stochastic games. Phys. Rev. E 99, 043305. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.99.043305

Reinforcement learning in multiagent systems has been studied in the fields of economic game theory, artificial intelligence and statistical physics by developing an analytical understanding of the learning dynamics (often in relation to the replicator dynamics of evolutionary game theory). However, the majority of these analytical studies focuses on repeated normal form games, which only have a single environmental state. Env...

Downing, A., Bhowmik, A., Collste, D. Cornell, S.E., Donges, J., et.al. 2019. Matching scope, purpose and uses of planetary boundaries science. Environ. Res. Lett. 14 073005. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab22c9

Background : The Planetary Boundaries concept (PBc) has emerged as a key global sustainability concept in international sustainable development arenas. Initially presented as an agenda for global sustainability research, it now shows potential for sustainability governance. We use the fact that it is widely cited in scientific literature (>3500 citations) and an extensively studied concept to analyse how it has been used and...

Steffen, W., Rockström, J., Richardson, K., Lenton, T.M. et.al. 2018. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. PNAS August 14, 2018 115 (33) 8252-8259. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1810141115

We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years a...

Heitzig, J., Barfuss, W., Donges, J.F. 2018. A Thought Experiment on Sustainable Management of the Earth System. Sustainability, 10, 1947. DOI: 10.3390/su10061947

We introduce and analyze a simple formal thought experiment designed to reflect a qualitative decision dilemma humanity might currently face in view of anthropogenic climate change. In this exercise, each generation can choose between two options, either setting humanity on a pathway to certain high wellbeing after one generation of suffering, or leaving the next generation in the same state as the current one with the same op...