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Tipping cascades, future Earth system trajectories, and the prospect of a Hothouse : a study with a reduced-complexity model by Victor COUPLET -
Mercredi 19 mars 2025 à 16h15 - Auditoire CYCL01 - Chemin du Cyclotron, 2 - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
The potential for the Earth system to transition irreversibly into a "Hothouse Earth" has generated significant scientific debate and media attention but remains underexplored in modelling studies. To address this, we develop SURFER, a reduced-complexity Earth system model integrating a dynamic carbon cycle and a network of interconnected tipping and nonlinear elements. SURFER’s computational efficiency allows us to conduct a large ensemble of multi-millennial simulations, accounting for the uncertainties associated with tipping elements and exploring the Earth system's response across various time scales and a wide range of forcing scenarios. Our results provide no evidence of a planetary threshold beyond which the Earth system evolves irreversibly into a Hothouse state. However, we found that tipping cascades triggered under low-emission scenarios can drive the Earth system toward a long-term "Wethouse" state, characterised by substantial sea-level rise. Such cascades lead to diverging Earth system trajectories where stabilisation of sea level at intermediate values becomes impossible.
Jury members :
Prof. Michel Crucifix (UCLouvain) (Supervisor)
Prof. Qiuzhen Yin (UCLouvain) (Chairperson)
Prof. François Massonnet (UCLouvain) (Secretary)
Prof. Wim Thiery (VUB, Belg.)
Prof. Anna von der Heydt (Utrecht Univ., Nl.)
Prof. Marisa Montoya Redondo (UCM, Spain)
Pay attention : the public defense of Victor COUPLET will also take place in the form of a videoconference
