Tipping cascades, future Earth system trajectories, and the prospect of a hothouse : a study with a reduced-complexity model
(2025)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- Crucifix, Michel
- Abstract
- The potential for the Earth system to transition irreversibly into a "Hothouse Earth" has generated significant scientific debate and media attention but remains underexplored in modelling studies. To address this, we develop SURFER, a reduced-complexity Earth system model integrating a dynamic carbon cycle and a network of interconnected tipping and nonlinear elements. SURFER's computational efficiency allows us to conduct a large ensemble of multi-millennial simulations, accounting for the uncertainties associated with tipping elements and exploring the Earth system's response across various time scales and a wide range of forcing scenarios. Our results provide no evidence of a planetary threshold beyond which the Earth system evolves irreversibly into a Hothouse state. However, we found that tipping cascades triggered under low-emission scenarios can drive the Earth system toward a long-term "Wethouse" state characterised by substantial sea-level rise. Such cascades lead to diverging Earth system trajectories where stabilisation of sea level at intermediate values becomes impossible.
- Affiliations
Citations
Couplet, V. (2025). Tipping cascades, future Earth system trajectories, and the prospect of a hothouse : a study with a reduced-complexity model. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/245821