Potential climatic tipping elements

Figure Created 12 Jan 2011 Published 12 Jan 2011 Last modified 29 Nov 2012

Topics: Climate change mitigation ,

Tipping elements are regional-scale features of the climate that could exhibit threshold-type behaviour in response to human-driven climate change – that is, a small amount of climate change at a critical point could trigger an abrupt and/or irreversible shift in the tipping element. The consequences of such shifts for societies and ecosystems are likely to be severe. Question marks indicate systems whose status as tipping elements is particularly uncertain. There are other potential tipping elements that are missing from the map, for example shallow-water coral reefs (Veron et al. 2009) threatened in part by ocean acidification

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Potential climatic tipping elements

Potential climatic tipping elements - Synthesis

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Last upload:

29 Nov 2010

Temporal coverage:

2009

Tags:

soer2010 , global megatrends , climate change , world , understanding climate change , synthesis , thematic assessments

Geographic coverage:

Austria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Cyprus , Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Ireland , Italy , Latvia , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , Netherlands , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Sweden , United Kingdom

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EEA standard re-use policy: unless otherwise indicated, re-use of content on the EEA website for commercial or non-commercial purposes is permitted free of charge, provided that the source is acknowledged (http://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

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Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

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Map

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The figure is covering EU and the rest of the world

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Understanding climate change — SOER 2010 thematic assessment Average global air and ocean temperatures are rising, leading to the melting of snow and ice and rising global mean sea level. Ocean acidification results from higher CO2 concentrations. With unabated greenhouse gas emissions, climate change could lead to an increasing risk of irreversible shifts in the climate system with potentially serious consequences. Temperature rises of more than 1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial levels are likely to cause major societal and environmental disruptions in many regions. The atmospheric CO2 concentration needs to be stabilised at 350–400 parts per million (ppm) in order to have a 50 % chance of limiting global mean temperature increase to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels (according to the IPCC in 2007, and confirmed by later scientific insights).

The European environment – state and outlook 2010: Synthesis The SOER 2010 Synthesis provides an overview of the European environment's state, trends and prospects, integrating the main findings of SOER 2010.

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