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Related papers: Tipping points in complex ecological systems

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Slow parameter drift is common in many systems (e.g., the amount of greenhouse gases in the terrestrial atmosphere is increasing). In such situations, the attractor on which the system trajectory lies can be destroyed, and the trajectory…

Chaotic Dynamics · Physics 2014-07-14 Takashi Nishikawa , Edward Ott

Models of complex dynamical systems like the Earth's climate often involve large numbers of uncertain parameters. Comprehensive exploration of the parameter space is typically prohibitive due to excessive computational costs. Systematic…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2026-03-27 Daniel Pals , Sebastian Bathiany , Richard Wood , Joel Kuettel , Niklas Boers

Critical transitions, or large changes in the state of a system after a small change in the system's external conditions or parameters, commonly occur in a wide variety of disciplines, from the biological and social sciences to physics.…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-10-26 George I. Hagstrom , Simon A. Levin

Multistability is a phenomenon prevalent in many natural systems. In climate, for example, it allows the possibility of irreversible consequences on planetary scale as a result of climate change. Indeed, a climate ``tipping element'' is a…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2026-04-14 George Datseris , Johannes Lohmann , Oisín Hamilton , Jacob Haqq-Misra

We discuss the nonlinear phenomena of irreversible tipping for non-autonomous systems where time-varying inputs correspond to a smooth "parameter shift" from one asymptotic value to another. We express tipping in terms of pullback…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2018-04-24 Peter Ashwin , Clare Perryman , Sebastian Wieczorek

Rate-induced tipping (R-tipping) occurs when a ramp parameter changes rapidly enough to cause the system to tip between co-existing, attracting states, while noise-induced tipping (N-tipping) occurs when there are random transitions between…

Chaotic Dynamics · Physics 2024-10-02 Katherine Slyman , Emmanuel Fleurantin , Christopher K. R. T. Jones

The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2020-08-05 Michael Ghil , Valerio Lucarini

The development of robust Early Warning Signals (EWS) is necessary to quantify the risk of crossing tipping points in the present-day climate change. Classically, EWS are statistical measures based on time series of climate state variables,…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2025-03-25 Laure Moinat , Jérôme Kasparian , Maura Brunetti

One way to warn of forthcoming critical transitions in Earth system components is using observations to detect declining system stability. It has also been suggested to extrapolate such stability changes into the future and predict tipping…

Geophysics · Physics 2024-08-14 Maya Ben-Yami , Andreas Morr , Sebastian Bathiany , Niklas Boers

The outbreak of epidemics, the emergence of the financial crisis, the collapse of ecosystem, and the explosive spreading of rumors, we face many challenges in today's world. These real-world problems can be abstracted into a sequential…

Physics and Society · Physics 2020-02-25 Gui-Yuan Shi , Rui-Jie Wu , Yi-Xiu Kong , Kim Sneppen

The early prediction of tipping points, distinguished by sudden and catastrophic shifts from stable states, poses a challenging task that would enable us to assess the impending threat across natural and engineered systems. This threat…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-12-02 Tapas Bar , Anurag Banerjee , Blai Casals , Gustau Catalan , Javier Rodríguez-Viejo

The current definition of rate-induced tipping is tied to the idea of a pullback attractor limiting in forward and backward time to a stable quasi-static equilibrium. Here we propose a new definition that encompasses the standard definition…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2021-06-16 Alanna Hoyer-Leitzel , Alice Nadeau

A presumed impact of global climate change is the increase in frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones. Due to the possible destruction that occurs when tropical cyclones make landfall, understanding their formation should be of mass…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2023-07-31 Katherine Slyman , John A. Gemmer , Nicholas K. Corak , Claire Kiers , Christopher K. R. T. Jones

Tipping points characterize situations where a regulated system may experience a sudden and irreversible change and are generally associated with a random state of the system below which the change materializes. In this paper, we study a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-25 Jean-Paul Décamps , Fabien Gensbittel , Thomas Mariotti , Stéphane Villeneuve

Humans interact with each other on a daily basis by developing and maintaining various social norms and it is critical to form a deeper understanding of how such norms develop, how they change, and how fast they change. In this work, we…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2018-07-03 Soham De , Dana S. Nau , Xinyue Pan , Michele J. Gelfand

Earth system tipping elements have been predominantly investigated for their potential to trigger \textit{negative} ecological, climatic, and societal shifts. Yet, an overlooked but seminal avenue exists in the form of \textit{positive}…

Abrupt transitions are a central concern in climate and ecological research, and may arise when critical thresholds known as tipping points are crossed. However, previous work has shown that finite-time overshoots of tipping points can be…

The early detection of tipping points, which describe a rapid departure from a stable state, is an important theoretical and practical challenge. Tipping points are most commonly associated with the disappearance of steady-state or periodic…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2021-04-09 Andrew Keane , Bernd Krauskopf , Timothy M. Lenton

When parameters of a dynamical system change sufficiently fast, critical transitions can take place even in the absence of bifurcations. This phenomenon is known as rate-induced tipping and has been reported in a variety of systems, from…

Chaotic Dynamics · Physics 2026-01-26 Jason Qianchuan Wang , Yi Zheng , Eduardo G. Altmann

Multiple stable states - the coexistence of two or more distinct ecological configurations under identical environmental conditions - have attracted sustained interest in ecology, yet the field still lacks a unified framework connecting…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2026-05-08 Jennifer Paige , Denis D. Patterson , Alan Hastings