If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. jump to content. The interglacial state of the Earth System is at the top of the glacial–interglacial cycle, while the glacial state is at the bottom. This paper is a contribution to European Research Council Advanced Grant 2016, Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene Project 743080. In “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene” by Will Steffen and others, it is proposed that due to Anthropic activity, the world is currently at a “fork in the road”. This paper is a contribution to European Research Council Advanced Grant 2016, Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene Project 743080. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Earth System trajectories, climate change, Anthropocene, biosphere feedbacks, tipping elements National Category Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (2018): Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. Kiel, 08. Defend Democracy Press THE WEBSITE OF THE DELPHI INITIATIVE. A hothouse Earth. were supported by Leibniz Association Project DOMINOES. A schematic illustration of possible future pathways of the climate against the background of the typical glacial–interglacial cycles (Lower Left). Generic resilience-building strategies include developing insurance, buffers, redundancy, diversity, and other features of resilience that are critical for transforming human systems in the face of warming and possible surprise associated with tipping points (84). Universal education is key to enhanced climate adaptation, The Nature of Sustainable Consumption and How to Achieve It: Results from the Focal Topic “From Knowledge to Action–New Paths Towards Sustainable Consumption”, Innovations in Sustainable Consumption: New Economics, Socio-Technical Transitions and Social Practices, Science and government. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. was supported by the Erling–Persson Family Foundation. Entre temps l’article a été publié là: Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, Michel Crucifix, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Steven J. Lade, Marten Scheffer, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber However, several of the feedbacks that show negligible or very small magnitude by 2100 could nevertheless be triggered well before then, and they could eventually generate significant feedback strength over longer timeframes—centuries and even millennia—and thus, influence the long-term trajectory of the Earth System. It is a crisis of the Earth System — disruption of the global biological, chemical and physical processes that constantly interact and in which a change to any part can affect the rest. Available at, Ice plug prevents irreversible discharge from East Antarctica, Southern Ocean warming delayed by circumpolar upwelling and equatorward transport, A minimum thermodynamic model for the bipolar seesaw, Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years, Heinrich events: Massive late Pleistocene detritus layers of the North Atlantic and their global climate imprint, Link between ocean temperature and iceberg discharge during Heinrich events, Investigating the causes of the response of the thermohaline circulation to past and future climate changes, Decadal fingerprints of freshwater discharge around Greenland in a multi-model ensemble, Armed-conflict risks enhanced by climate-related disasters in ethnically fractionalized countries, Climate Change and Human Health: Risks and Responses, How did the 2012 drought affect rural livelihoods in vulnerable areas? Widespread, rapid, and fundamental transformations will likely be required to reduce the risk of crossing the threshold and locking in the Hothouse Earth pathway; these include changes in behavior, technology and innovation, governance, and values (48, 62, 63). Geology of mankind. Features of such a strategy include (i) maintenance of diversity, modularity, and redundancy; (ii) management of connectivity, openness, slow variables, and feedbacks; (iii) understanding social–ecological systems as complex adaptive systems, especially at the level of the Earth System as a whole (85); (iv) encouraging learning and experimentation; and (v) broadening of participation and building of trust to promote polycentric governance systems (86, 87). Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system, Critical Transitions in Nature and Society, The declining uptake rate of atmospheric CO, The impact of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate, Observation-based modelling of permafrost carbon fluxes with accounting for deep carbon deposits and thermokarst activity, A simplified, data-constrained approach to estimate the permafrost carbon-climate feedback, An observation-based constraint on permafrost loss as a function of global warming, Temperature-dependent remineralization in a warming ocean increases surface pCO, Analysis of remineralisation, lability, temperature sensitivity and structural composition of organic matter from the upper ocean, Committed terrestrial ecosystem changes due to climate change, A 70-year retrospective analysis of carbon fluxes in the Canadian forest sector, Glacial legacies on interglacial vegetation at the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition in NE Asia, Human-induced greening of the northern extratropical land surface, Recent pause in the growth rate of atmospheric CO, Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Evidence from paleoclimatedata, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming could be dangerous, Imprecise probability assessment of tipping points in the climate system, Modelling West Antarctic ice sheet growth and collapse through the past five million years, Potential Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat driven by hydrofracturing and ice cliff failure, Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise, Ocean heat drives rapid basal melt of the Totten Ice Shelf, National security implications of climate-related risks and a changing climate. my subreddits. (PMID:30082409 PMCID:PMC6099852) Abstract Citations ... the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. fundamental shifts in the state and functioning of the Earth System that are beyond the range of variability of the Holocene and driven by human activities. Download (854.17 kB) link to publisher version. Future projection of greenhouse gas emissions due to permafrost degradation using a simple numerical scheme with a global land surface model. Given our understanding of geophysical and biosphere feedbacks intrinsic to the Earth System, where might such a threshold be? Online ISSN 1091-6490. Carbon cycle feedbacks and future climate change. Nature. We argue that a planetary threshold in the Earth System could exist at a temperature rise as low as 2 °C above preindustrial. Enhanced ambition will need new collectively shared values, principles, and frameworks as well as education to support such changes (67, 68). (iii) What planetary stewardship strategies are required to maintain the Earth System in a manageable Stabilized Earth state? The article “The Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene” written by Steffen, et al. Even so, the pathway toward Stabilized Earth will involve considerable changes to the structure and functioning of the Earth System, suggesting that resilience-building strategies be given much higher priority than at present in decision making. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene Abstract: We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced. The current position, at over 1 °C above a preindustrial baseline (10), is nearing the upper envelope of interglacial conditions over the past 1.2 million years (SI Appendix, Table S1). Arrows show the potential interactions among the tipping elements based on expert elicitation that could generate cascades.