
Tipping Elements in the Earth System
Overview
- Create an international science platform for the study of climatic, ecological and social tipping elements and their interactions in the Earth system.
Objectives and Goals
- Facilitate and coordinate synthesis and review activities and publications on the risks imposed by climate and ecological tipping elements and their potentially cascading interactions, early warning signals and intervention/management options, as well as on the opportunities offered by societal tipping elements and their interactions for sustainability transformation.
- Identify corresponding research needs.
- Convene workshops, consortia for third-party funding consortia and other activities around these topics.
- Help to interface AIMES with the tipping points-related efforts of Future Earth / Earth Commission.
- Serve as a science-based clearing house for these topics for research and policy communities.
Working Group Steering Committee


Victor Brovkin is head of a group on Climate-Biogeosphere Interactions at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology and professor at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He was trained as a mathematician at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, where he got his PhD degree in 1988. Victor Brovkin has over 20 years experience in global climate and carbon cycle science. His research is focused on interactions between terrestrial ecosystems and the climate, including biogeophysical and biogeochemical feedbacks. Victor Brovkin has developed global dynamic vegetation models and applied them for pioneering studies on stability of climate-vegetation system. He uses models of different complexity to study carbon cycle dynamics in the Quaternary period, including the last glacial cycle and the Holocene. His groups research has now shifted towards understanding the role of high latitude ecosystems in the climate system, focusing on terrestrial and marine permafrost processes.

Ricarda Winkelmann is a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany and teaches climate physics as junior professor at Potsdam University. Winkelmann is a member of the German Young Academy of Science and contributing author of the sea-level chapter of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Trained as a mathematician and theoretical physicist in Germany and the United States, Winkelmann received her PhD with distinction from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 2012. Winkelmann was appointed Junior Professor for Climate System Analysis at Potsdam University in 2014. Her research at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research focuses on tipping elements in the Earth System, Antarctic ice-dynamics and future sea-level rise.
News and Events
EGU Abstract Submission: Earth resilience, tipping points and human-Earth system interactions in the Anthropocene
Climate Tipping Points, Irreversibility and their Consequences for Society, Environment and Economies | Switzerland’s Proposal for an IPCC Special Report
Climate Tipping Points, Irreversibility and their Consequences for Society, Environment and Economies | Switzerland’s Proposal for an IPCC Special ReportABOUT THIS SESSION Over the past decades, our scientific understanding of climate change has significantly grown....
Tipping Points and Understanding Earth Observation data needs for a Tipping Element Model Intercomparison Project
Tipping Points and Understanding Earth Observation data needs for a Tipping Element Model Intercomparison Project The International Space Science Institute is hosting a workshop on 10-14 October 2022 in Bern, Switzerland. Workshops are selected by the ISSI Directors...
Governing tipping elements in the Earth system as the new global commons of the Anthropocene
Governing tipping elements in the Earth system as the new global commons of the Anthropocene This two-day cross-disciplinary in-person workshop will be jointly hosted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and the Institute for Advanced...
Tipping Points Conference at the University of Exeter: From Climate Crisis to Positive Transformation
Tipping Points - from climate crisis to positive transformation On 12-14 September 2022, the University of Exeter is hosting a ‘call to action’ to form an alliance to improve warnings of the proximity of catastrophic climate tipping points and to accelerate positive...
EGU Session: Tipping points, domino effects and resilience in the Earth system Abstract Submission
EGU Abstract Submission: Tipping points, domino effects and resilience in the Earth system Co-organized by CR7/NP8/OS1 Convener: Ricarda Winkelmann | Co-conveners: Jonathan Donges, Victor Brovkin, Sarah Cornell, Timothy Lenton In this session we invite contributions...
Expression of Interest: Tipping Element Model Intercomparison Project
The Earth Commission’s Working Group 1 (Earth and Human Systems Modelling Intercomparison Project), Future Earth’s global research project Analysis, Integration, and Modeling of the Earth System (AIMES) and the Safe Landing Climates Light House Activity of World...
Workshop: Remote Sensing of Tipping Points in the Climate System
Hosted by the International Space Science Institute and convened by ESA Climate Office and the Future Earth AIMES project, a workshop held 26-29 January 2021 brought modelers and the remote-sensing community together to discuss how Earth observations can contribute to our understanding of tipping elements in the climate system and help with early warning of change.
Workshop: Abrupt changes, thresholds, and tipping points in Earth history and future implications
AIMES and PAGES organized a workshop at MPI-M to summarize and evaluate evidence on non-linear Earth System dynamics in recent geological history, and discuss how best to acquire, analyze and interpret such data to understand the risk of future abrupt transitions.