Tipping points in the climate system

Abstract. In climatic time series abrupt changes are observed. We hypothesize that these abrupt changes are due to nonlinear responses inherent in the climate system, specifically, so-called tipping points. This behaviour result from non-linear climate response to either ex-ternal forcing, internal stochastic fluctuations or a combination of both. At some point the forcing will cause the climate to jump from one stable state to another. This scenario is termed a tipping point. The concept of a tipping point is quite broad, but here we shall refrain from any gen-eral definitions and consider the following more restricted framework: We consider the climate or some components of the climate as a dynamical system depending on a set of parameters. Factors, not included in the system interacting with components of the system, can then be consid-ered external forcing or stochastic fluctuations. Two common, and often competing, hypotheses are: The climate system’s steady state loses its stability and disappears as an external system (control-)parameter slowly changes, so-called b-tipping, b for bifurcation-induced; or fluctuations spontaneously push the climate system from one stable state to another, so-called n-tipping, n for noise-induced. The cause of the tipping can be very different in the two cases, and especially the possibility of predicting a tipping will be different. In the case that the underlying dynamics or the control-parameter are not com-pletely known, there could still be early warning signals in the statistics of the observed fluctuations prior to a tipping point. The Pleistocene climate is documented in a variety of geological records, most promi