What do we mean, 'tipping cascade'?

TL;DR

This paper explores different patterns of climate and ecological tipping cascades, highlighting their distinct dynamics, risks, and challenges for prediction and intervention, emphasizing the need for precise analysis of such complex interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a simple coupling model to distinguish between various tipping cascade patterns and analyzes their implications for prediction and mitigation.

Findings

Different cascade patterns include two phase, domino, and joint cascades.

Early warning indicators are effective for some cascades but not others.

Certain cascades are nearly impossible to stop once initiated.

Abstract

Based on suggested interactions of potential tipping elements in the Earth's climate and in ecological systems, tipping cascades as possible dynamics are increasingly discussed and studied as their activation would impose a considerable risk for human societies and biosphere integrity. However, there are ambiguities in the description of tipping cascades within the literature so far. Here we illustrate how different patterns of multiple tipping dynamics emerge from a very simple coupling of two previously studied idealized tipping elements. In particular, we distinguish between a two phase cascade, a domino cascade and a joint cascade. While a mitigation of an unfolding two phase cascade may be possible and common early warning indicators are sensitive to upcoming critical transitions to a certain degree, the domino cascade may hardly be stopped once initiated and critical slowing down--based indicators fail to indicate tipping of the following element. These different potentials for intervention and anticipation across the distinct patterns of multiple tipping dynamics should be seen as a call to be more precise in future analyses on cascading dynamics arising from tipping element interactions in the Earth system.