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Climatic Tipping Elements with potential impact on Europe
ETC/ACC Technical Paper 2010/3

Released: 2010/10/25: See the report

Abstract
This Technical Paper provides a brief overview of potential Tipping Elements of the climate system with large-scale impact on Europe. Systems discussed are the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, Alpine glaciers as well as summer sea ice and stratospheric ozone in the Arctic. The paper is aimed at a non-scientific audience. Information on impacts, tipping mechanism and tipping potential is based on published scientific literature. While the risk for a transition into a qualitatively different state is generally considered to increase with global mean temperature, it is regarded to be significant for all systems beyond a warming of two degrees above present-day levels. Alpine glaciers and the Arctic summer sea ice might exhibit a transition already at lower temperatures. The assessment is based on discussions initiated during an EEA workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark, October, 12th -13th, 2009.

Prepared by: A. Levermann¹, J. Bamber², S. Drijfhout³, A. Ganopolski¹, W. Haeberli⁴, N.R.P. Harris⁵, M. Huss⁶, T. M. Lenton⁷, R.W. Lindsay⁸, D. Notz⁹, P. Wadhams⁵ and S. Weber ^{3
1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; 2University of Bristol, UK; 3Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, Netherlands; 4University of Zurich, Switzerland; 5Cambridge University, UK; 6University of Fribourg, Switzerland; 7University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; 8University of Washington, Seattle, USA; 9Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany}

Published by: ETC/ACC, October 2010, 40 pp.

• Based on the ETC technical paper the authors have published a scientific article:
  Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe: Review of the current state of six ‘tipping elements of the climate system’, Climatic Change, June 2011, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-011-0126-5