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SUMMARY:Indentification and early warning of climate tipping points - Lent
 on\, T (University of East Anglia)
DTSTART:20100823T130000Z
DTEND:20100823T140000Z
UID:TALK25896@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:Striking developments in the climate system in recent years ha
 ve reinforced the view that anthropogenic radiative forcing is unlikely to
  cause a smooth transition into the future. Drought in the Amazon in 2005\
 , record Arctic sea-ice decline in 2007\, accelerating loss of water from 
 the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets\, and an extraordinary Asian s
 ummer monsoon in 2010\, have all made the headlines. These large-scale com
 ponents of the Earth system are among those that we have identified as pot
 ential tipping elements  climate sub-systems that could exhibit a tipping 
 point where a small change in forcing causes a qualitative change in their
  future state. The resulting transition may be either abrupt or irreversib
 le\, or in the worst cases\, both. In IPCC terms such changes are referred
  to as large-scale discontinuities. Should they occur\, they would surely 
 qualify as dangerous climate changes. Recent assessments suggest that the 
 traditional view of the likelihood of tipping points as very low probabili
 ty events should be revised upwards - especially if we continue business-a
 s-usual. Given this\, is there any prospect for providing societies with a
  useful early warning signal of an approaching climate tipping point? \n\n
 The talk will have two main aims. Firstly\, we want to review (and slightl
 y revise) the list of potential tipping elements\, providing some updates\
 , especially where there is new insight into the mechanisms behind them\, 
 or new information about the proximity of tipping points. Secondly\, we wa
 nt to present our ongoing work to try and develop robust methods of identi
 fying and anticipating tipping points (in particular\, bifurcations) in th
 e climate system. Our latest application of these methods to sea surface t
 emperature data suggest that a new climate state may be in the process of 
 appearing\, particularly in the Arctic and northernmost Atlantic region.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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