Climate ‘Tipping Points’ May Arrive Without Warning, Says Top Forecaster
From a UC Davis press release
A new University of California, Davis, study by a top ecological forecaster says it is harder than experts thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth’s natural systems will occur — a worrisome finding for scientists trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster.
“Many scientists are looking for the warning signs that herald sudden changes in natural systems, in hopes of forestalling those changes, or improving our preparations for them,” said UC Davis theoretical ecologist Alan Hastings. “Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning — systems can ‘tip’ precipitously.
“This means that some effects of global climate change on ecosystems can be seen only once the effects are dramatic. By that point returning the system to a desirable state will be difficult, if not impossible.”
The current study focuses on models from ecology, but its findings may be applicable to other complex systems, especially ones involving human dynamics such as harvesting of fish stocks or financial markets.
Hastings, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy, is one of the world’s top experts in using mathematical models (sets of equations) to understand natural systems. His current studies range from researching the dynamics of salmon and cod populations to modeling plant and animal species’ response to global climate change.
In 2006, Hastings received the Robert H. MacArthur Award, the highest honor given by the Ecological Society of America.
Hastings’ collaborator and co-author on the new study, Derin Wysham, was previously a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis and is now a research scientist in the Department of Computational and Systems Biology at the John Innes Center in Norwich, England.
Scientists widely agree that global climate change is already causing major environmental effects, such as changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation, droughts, heat waves and wildfires; rising sea level; water shortages in arid regions; new and larger pest outbreaks afflicting crops and forests; and expanding ranges for tropical pathogens that cause human illness.
And they fear that worse is in store. As U.S. presidential science adviser John Holdren (not an author of the new UC Davis study) recently told a congressional committee: “Climate scientists worry about ‘tipping points’ … thresholds beyond which a small additional increase in average temperature or some associated climate variable results in major changes to the affected system.”
Among the tipping points Holdren listed were: the complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summer, leading to drastic changes in ocean circulation and climate patterns across the whole Northern Hemisphere; acceleration of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, driving rates of sea-level increase to 6 feet or more per century; and ocean acidification from carbon dioxide absorption, causing massive disruption in ocean food webs.
The new UC Davis study, “Regime shifts in ecological systems can occur with no warning,” was supported by the Advancing Theory in Biology program at the U.S. National Science Foundation and was published online today by the journal Ecology Letters, in its Early View feature: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123276879/abstract.
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FYI The image is by Anthony, and of course, it’s a spoof.
Tipping point, of course, but which way?
The ice age is coming. Glaciers are already forming in my local parking lots.
I actually think we may have reached a tipping point, but it’s not the one reported by UC….
I’ve been searching the web and found STACKS of MSM stuff covering the various ‘gates’ the MSM are actually starting to look at this in a slightly less biased way.
I think that the ‘tipping point’ headline will turn out to be ill timed. They’re spitting out propaganda like this on the very same day Jim’s mate at the GISS is dropping neutron bombs over at DOT Earth. Oh the irony!
Look up Al Gore on You Tube, sort by date….. there are PAGES pissed off Americans shoveling snow and cussing his name….. They’re asking where the Global Warming went…..
We all know that weather is not climate, but you can bet that the mood of the people is getting through to the powers that be…. so the ‘tipping point’ propaganda shows up on cue…… I think that the timing of all this may just spell ‘check mate’….. Again…. Oh the Irony!!
Time will tell, but it seems to me like this maybe the perfect storm…. remember how they turned off all the air con and chose the hottest day to begin all this?….. It’s got ‘falling apart’ written all over it….hence my Dad’s Army link above.
Karma anyone?
The only “Tipping Point” coming our way will be “temperatures” heading south for a very long period of time.
I’m tried of shoveling snow.
50 years from now the survivors will be amazed at our failure to see and prepare for the coming ice-age.
Fools.
By sleight of hand, these pseudo-scientists conflate sudden shifts in climate which have occurred, either from ice age conditions to warm or the reverse with their idiotic, mythical Alarmist idea of a C02-induced “tipping point”. Since we are already warm, the only logical thing to worry about is a shift back to ice age conditions.
They have seemingly imbued C02 with magical powers, so I suppose they believe it is not only capable of frying the earth, but freezing it as well?
The story that the Earth’s climate can change – both cooling down and heating up – dramatically and suddenly is very, very old news.
I don’t know how many times I have read about frozen mammoths found with temperate climate vegetation in their stomachs.
Do we know what causes these sudden dramatic changes in temperature? The answer is “Not a clue”.
Can we do anything about it? The answer is “Absolutely not.”
Typical scare story, its motivation is obvious: “This needs investigation, therefore – please can we have a very big grant for many years.”
To paraphrase one of their closing conclusions:
“Regime shifts in (The US Government) can occur with no warning.”
Now there’s a prediction for ya.
Let’s go back to first principles.
What is ecology?
When did it become “science”?
Who set the parameters?
Who defined the rules?
What is an ecological model?
How is it calibrated?
How is it verified?
Answers, or at least partial answers, to these questions may be found in Alston Chase’s “In a Dark Wood” (1995). Chase writes about the web of spurious science, environmental extremism, and big government politics involved in the northern spotted owl controversy in the forests of the Pacific northwest during the 80s and 90s. The spotted owl “science” was based on bad data, flawed theoretical models, faulty assumptions, and outrageously exaggerated claims of disaster if the environmentalists were not obeyed. IMHO, the spotted owl issue was the operational model for the AGW scam.
Monsters INC.
(and there’s one under YOUR bed!)
In the UK a “tipping point” is a place where people fly tip, throwing out rubbish and trash.
If the science is so bad you can’t even get it through using the “it’s right unless you prove otherwise” – precautionary principle, then the back stop is to bring out the “it’s right – unless you can prove it isn’t – but there isn’t anything to disprove so yah boo sucks I’ll get my bogus science peer reviewed” – “tipping point”.
What next? Politicians arguing: “The economy is at a tipping point which means we have to pay a lot more tax to stop us going over the tipping point”.
Or drug companies: “We are all about to get ill from a virus, whose effects could ‘tip’ over into a new strain of bogus … bird brained flu”?
Or software compannies: “THe world is at a tipping point and you must buy our anti-tipping point software to prevent you going over the tipping point” – buy our 2000 bug prevention software now.
“Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning — systems can ‘tip’ precipitously.”
Is Davis anywhere near the San Andreas fault?
I find that mathematical models can be made to work perfectly. It’s just reality that lets you down.
“Many scientists are looking for the warning signs that herald sudden changes in natural systems, in hopes of forestalling those changes, or improving our preparations for them,” said UC Davis theoretical ecologist Alan Hastings.”
Hey, just one peer-reviewed, published paper would flush everything concerning AGW to where it belongs. We need a ‘scientist’, I propose a ‘botany respiratory therapist’, to postulate an impending tipping point that is about to destroy all plant life. The only way to avoid the tipping point is to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It doesn’t have to be true just as long as there is a model that ‘proves’ it.
That should do the trick.
I now see the tipping point.
If California does not stop wasting taxpayers money with funding these folks, it will go bankrupt.
Perhaps an asteroid will strike the Yellowstone supervolcano fair and square in the jughole, instantaneously presenting an already tipped brand spanking new tipping point and none of it will matter any more.
Geoff Alder
Is it just me or does the picture inserted by Anthony remind anyone of the Audi green police commercial? This guy has a degree in ridiculae. Model based as well.
I consider myself a “lukewarmist”. I don’t dismiss this stuff entirely. I think it likely us humans have had some impact on climate –I just am not convinced yet that the climatologists have made their case convincingly just how much, and rather firmly suspect they’ve overstated it considerably in their models so far.
But the two things that just drive me batty are the dismissal of the MWP as “anecdotal” and “imminent tipping points”. This study may in fact be correct –tipping points may only be recognized in the rear-view mirror. But the way it will be used is to argue that even the tiniest changes may be disastrous. That is a recipe for cowering under the covers.
It is no different than saying I must stay in bed today, because I might be hit by a bus crossing the street. Well, yes. . . I might be –but I can’t live my life on that basis, and neither can the human race.
So why are these faster/worse than previously imagined types still jumping up & down with such vigor?
Let me take a Murphy Approach to this enigma:
Somebody already tried to alter the climate, it backfired, and now they fear it’s too late.
They’re jumping up & down vigorously because they are truly frightened, and they are hoping the skeptics will have an answer to fix thier boo-boo.
Here’s the answer: Leave it alone. The Climate will settle down all on it’s own, but not until the damage has been done, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
Somewhat OT.
@Michael (00:30:49) :
“I’m trying to find the scene where the British horses were going to trample the people and the people laid down on the ground. The horses knew instinctively and spiritually not to trample people. ”
I’m not sure I go along with the idea that horses know these things spiritually and we could no doubt have a very interesting discussion on these points.
The truth about cavalry though, and thus its fundamental limitation, is that it’s no good against solid/unbroken blocks of people who won’t budge. Horses just don’t like to charge into things that might damage them and that they can’t see through or easily jump over and are sensible enough (I use this term a little wildly perhaps) not to risk hurting themselves. They will stop short of the line.
Elephants (so I understand) can be taught to charge into and trample people but horses can’t. Once a line is broken, horses can be used to knock over and run people down – pursuit is the thing that cavalry is best at – but they won’t charge home against steady unbroken infantry lines, especially if the infantry are making a great deal of noise and have long pointy things sticking out as well. Hastings, Agincourt, any number of other battles all prove this point. So, perhaps the horses were behaving perfectly normally not spiritually. 🙂
Let’s see: Climate Change (formerly known as AGW) can cause both floods and droughts; heatwaves and frigid outbreaks; wildfires, tropical storms, melting glaciers, and changes in the earth’s weather oscillations. In short, Climate Change can be niether verified nor can it be unproven. Therefore, from a strictly scientific point of view, Climate Change is not a scientific phenomenon. Also, these people appear to be breaking RC’s first rule: do not conflate climate with weather.
The narrative is narrowing a bit. For the last several months, the meme seems to be shifting to rising sea levels and not Artic ice melt.
E.M.Smith (01:17:42) : As long as you do not have too many alcoholic beverages while engaging in mathematics. Everyone knows you shouldn’t drink and derive. Mathematicians against drinking and deriving (MADD).
“returning the system to a desirable state”
Desirable state according to whom? Mine would be daily high temps around 88 F, low temps 75 F with Gulf of Mexico water temps 86 F every day, every year. A polar bear, on the other hand, might want it a tad bit cooler; as does my brother in Connecticut.
This is scaremongering nonsense, the act of desperate men trying to regain their esteemed position.
The earth has lower C02 and lower temperature levels now than at virtually any point in the past 500 million years, and 500 million years ago C02 was 3000ppm or higher.
So its been steadily, slowly cooling and the current temperature rise and C02 rise is miniscule in comparision.
If you can’t tell us if we’ve gone past a tipping point, then you obviously can’t tell us if we’ve pulled back from a tipping point.
Brilliant!
Bruce Cobb “They have seemingly imbued C02 with magical powers, so I suppose they believe it is not only capable of frying the earth, but freezing it as well?”
Oh did you not know? CO2 is a COOLING GAS. That is because it has a higher emissivity (i.e. it emits IR in the IR windows in the spectra), and when present high in the atmosphere this higher emissivity allows it to emit more CO2 increasing the rate of cooling. The result is that higher levels of CO2 are resulting in lowering global temperatures and this manmade global cooling is getting near the tipping point where is will be the preferred way to get grant money.
Just had a very brief glance at that on Google Books where it mentions Deep Ecology and the notion that “everything is interdependent” and “everything is created equal”.
That right there is a subtle but fundamental flaw in Deep Ecology—it only looks at the network of things, it doesn’t look at the depth of the interiors of the individual beings. In other words, viewed from space, humans are part of a network of ecosystems, and nothing looks more important than anything else. But viewed from the point of view of an individual as a human being, and what it means to be human, a human is concerned with science and poetry and love and all those things which are higher, more intricate, more conscious, and more important, than an ant colony. Ants outnumber us and they may even be fundamental entities in the web of life, but they are not deeper conscious beings than us. “Deep” ecology misses this point entirely.