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Simulating Impacts of Ice Storms on Forest Ecosystems
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Dynamics of climate and ecosystem coupling: abrupt changes and multiple equilibria.

Paul A T Higgins1, Michael D Mastrandrea, Stephen H Schneider

  • 1Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA. phiggins@stanford.edu

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
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Global climate and biosphere systems exhibit emergent behaviors, like abrupt climate shifts, due to subsystem interactions. These complex, nonlinear responses are often underestimated in policy and economic analyses.

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Area of Science:

  • Earth System Science
  • Climate Science
  • Ecology

Background:

  • Global climate and biosphere subsystems (atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, cryosphere) interact, producing emergent behaviors not seen in isolation.
  • Emergent properties arise from coupled subsystems, such as interactions between thermohaline circulation and climate, leading to multiple equilibria.
  • Past abrupt climate changes and potential future shifts are linked to these emergent properties, complicating linear global change views.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To highlight emergent properties in coupled climate-biosphere systems.
  • To explain how these properties can lead to abrupt and potentially irreversible changes.
  • To underscore the underestimation of nonlinear global changes in scientific and policy discussions.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of interactions between global climate and biosphere subsystems.
  • Examination of emergent properties in coupled systems, using thermohaline circulation and Sahel climate-vegetation dynamics as examples.
  • Review of historical data and modeling of system equilibria and transitions.

Main Results:

  • Coupled ocean-atmosphere circulation exhibits emergent properties, like multiple thermohaline circulation equilibria, causing past and potential future abrupt climate changes.
  • Atmosphere-biosphere interactions in the Sahel create multiple stable climate-vegetation equilibria (wet or dry), dependent on initial conditions.
  • Small perturbations can trigger switches between equilibria, demonstrating the potential for abrupt, irreversible shifts in coupled socio-natural systems.

Conclusions:

  • Emergent properties of coupled climate-biosphere systems lead to nonlinear, abrupt, and potentially irreversible changes.
  • These complex dynamics, including multiple equilibria and history dependence, challenge linear models of global change.
  • Conventional analyses likely underestimate the social and economic consequences of global changes due to insufficient consideration of these emergent properties.