Publications

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 ...

Kitzmann, N. H., Donges, J. F., Bai, X., Lade, S., Romanczuk, P., and Winkelmann, R.: Contagious Transformations? Inter-City Spreading of Sustainability Innovations., EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8976, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8976, 2021

In the Anthropocene, socio-economic systems are an integral and highly interconnected part of Earth System. The internal dynamics of these systems will decide whether the Earth can remain in, or return to, a resilient state that resembles the Holocene. Understanding these dynamics thus represents an important aspect of Earth System Science. To prevent the irreversible crossing of Planetary Boundaries, a rapid, global societal...

Smith, K., Wiedermann, M., Donges, J., Heitzig, J., and Winkelmann, R.: Concern and anticipation of future sea-level rise increase potential for social tipping interventions, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-6081, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6081, 2021.

Effective climate change mitigation necessitates swift societal transformations in order to meet the goals of the Paris Accord and to prevent abrupt, irreversible, transitions in the Earth System. Social tipping processes, where relatively small groups trigger sudden qualitative shifts in collective behaviour have been identified as a potential key mechanism instigating these necessary transformations However, the specific pr...

Klose, A. K., Donges, J. F., Feudel, U., and Winkelmann, R.: Cascading tipping behavior of the interacting Greenland Ice Sheet and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in a model of low complexity , EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8436, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8436, 2021.

The Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) have been identified as possible tipping elements of the climate system, transitioning into a qualitatively different state with the crossing of a critical driver threshold. They interact via freshwater fluxes into the North Atlantic originating from a melting GIS on the one hand, and via a relative cooling around Greenland with a slowdown...

Tamberg, L., Heitzig, J., and Donges, J.: A modeler's guide to studying the resilience of social-technical-environmental systems, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-11014, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-11014, 2021.

The concept of `resilience' is increasingly being applied in the study of social-technical-environmental systems in Earth system and sustainability science. However, the diversity of resilience concepts and a certain (sometimes intended) openness of proposed definitions can lead to misunderstandings and impede their application to systems modelling. We propose an approach that aims to ease communication as well as to support ...