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Tipping Points in the Earth System

Descripción del proyecto

Modelos de predicción para el sistema terrestre de puntos de inflexión

La Tierra ha atravesado transiciones abruptas durante su historia, pero todavía no se conocen bien los mecanismos subyacentes, ni los modelos actuales pueden simular de forma realista las transiciones abruptas pasadas. El proyecto TiPES se centrará en la acuciante necesidad de estudiar los puntos de inflexión en los que los subsistemas terrestres han cambiado, mejorar la modelización de las transiciones abruptas y proporcionar una estimación de la estabilidad de los estados deseables. Por tanto, TiPES contribuirá a una mejor predicción de los posibles futuros cambios abruptos provocados por el calentamiento global antropogénico, a aclarar qué significa desde el punto de vista socioeconómico cruzar los puntos de inflexión y a ayudar a los responsables políticos a planear estrategias para crear espacios operativos seguros para la humanidad.

Objetivo

There is rising concern that several subsystems of the Earth may respond highly nonlinearly at critical future levels of anthropogenic forcing; these levels have recently been associated with tipping points (TPs). It is paramount to identify safe operating spaces for humanity and the planet in terms of these critical forcing levels, in order to prevent harmful transitions to alternative, undesirable states of the Earth system. The mechanisms leading to such abrupt transitions are only partly understood, and further research in this regard is urgently needed. State-of-art Earth System Models appear to respond too smoothly at TPs and have difficulties in simulating abrupt transitions that occurred in the planet’s history. TiPES will address these problems from several angles: 1. The project will identify subsystems that may exhibit abrupt transitions, and couplings between them, by focussing on paleoclimatic records and abrupt transitions therein. Novel methods to detect Early Warning Signals of forthcoming TPs, and to make skilful predictions on their basis, will be developed. 2. The potential shortcomings of models in representing TPs will be evaluated; in particular, TiPES will investigate how Bayesian calibration techniques can help enable these models to simulate past abrupt transitions. 3. TiPES will develop a generalized theory of climate sensitivity that accounts for the presence of TPs and feedbacks across various time scales. 4. To define safe operating spaces. TiPES will focus on dynamical system theory and on global stability notions for non-autonomous systems in order to estimate the stability of desirable states. 5. The results obtained by the project will be communicated to policy makers in a manner that facilitates decisions and their implementation. TiPES will develop formal approaches to define the socioeconomic risks of crossing TPs, and to derive decision strategies to keep anthropogenic forcing below levels where abrupt transitions may occur.

Convocatoria de propuestas

H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020

Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoria

Convocatoria de subcontratación

H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2

Régimen de financiación

RIA - Research and Innovation action

Coordinador

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 1 585 843,75
Dirección
NORREGADE 10
1165 Kobenhavn
Dinamarca

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Región
Danmark Hovedstaden Byen København
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
€ 1 585 843,75

Participantes (19)