Tipping points in the climate system can be the result of a slow but linear development.
Tipping points in the climate system can be the result of a slow but linear development. However, they can also be accompanied by a “flickering", with two stable climatic states that alternate before a final transition occurs – and the climate tips permanently. A study by the research team around Potsdam geoscientist Prof. Dr. Martin H. Trauth confirms this for the end of the African Humid Period and the transition to the pronounced aridity that is typical today.
The researchers analyzed several sediment cores measuring up to 280 meters from the Chew Bahir Basin in southern Ethiopia, which act as a “record” of 620,000 years of East African climate history. The results of the study, which have just been published in “Nature Communications,” show that at the end of the African Humid Period, intense dry and wet events alternated regularly over a period of around 1,000 years before a dry climate prevailed around 5,000 years ago. A better understanding of the various tipping points and, above all, their typical early warning signals could prove essential for further climate change research and modeling.
Read more at University of Potsdam
Image: Dust storm on the surface of the remote Chew Bahir Basin, a salt pan in southern Ethiopia, near the drill site of the Chew Bahir records spanning 620,000 years. (Photo Credit: Dr. Verena Förster-Indenhuck via University of Potsdam)
