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      Abrupt Climate Change in an Oscillating World

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          Abstract

          The notion that small changes can have large consequences in the climate or ecosystems has become popular as the concept of tipping points. Typically, tipping points are thought to arise from a loss of stability of an equilibrium when external conditions are slowly varied. However, this appealingly simple view puts us on the wrong foot for understanding a range of abrupt transitions in the climate or ecosystems because complex environmental systems are never in equilibrium. In particular, they are forced by diurnal variations, the seasons, Milankovitch cycles and internal climate oscillations. Here we show how abrupt and sometimes even irreversible change may be evoked by even small shifts in the amplitude or time scale of such environmental oscillations. By using model simulations and reconciling evidence from previous studies we illustrate how these phenomena can be relevant for ecosystems and elements of the climate system including terrestrial ecosystems, Arctic sea ice and monsoons. Although the systems we address are very different and span a broad range of time scales, the phenomena can be understood in a common framework that can help clarify and unify the interpretation of abrupt shifts in the Earth system.

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          Most cited references75

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          Monsoons: Processes, predictability, and the prospects for prediction

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            Alternative equilibria in shallow lakes.

            The turbidity of lakes is generally considered to be a smooth function of their nutrient status. However, recent results suggest that over a range of nutrient concentrations, shallow lakes can have two alternative equilibria: a clear state dominated by aquatic vegetation, and a turbid state characterized by high algal biomass. This bi-stability has important implications for the possibilities of restoring eutrophied shallow lakes. Nutrient reduction alone may have little impact on water clarity, but an ecosystem disturbance like foodweb manipulation can bring the lake back to a stable clear state. We discuss the reasons why alternative equilibria are theoretically expected in shallow lakes, review evidence from the field and evaluate recent applications of this insight in lake management. Copyright © 1993. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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              Millennial- and orbital-scale changes in the East Asian monsoon over the past 224,000 years.

              High-resolution speleothem records from China have provided insights into the factors that control the strength of the East Asian monsoon. Our understanding of these factors remains incomplete, however, owing to gaps in the record of monsoon history over the past two interglacial-glacial cycles. In particular, missing sections have hampered our ability to test ideas about orbital-scale controls on the monsoon, the causes of millennial-scale events and relationships between changes in the monsoon and climate in other regions. Here we present an absolute-dated oxygen isotope record from Sanbao cave, central China, that completes a Chinese-cave-based record of the strength of the East Asian monsoon that covers the past 224,000 years. The record is dominated by 23,000-year-long cycles that are synchronous within dating errors with summer insolation at 65 degrees N (ref. 10), supporting the idea that tropical/subtropical monsoons respond dominantly and directly to changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation on orbital timescales. The cycles are punctuated by millennial-scale strong-summer-monsoon events (Chinese interstadials), and the new record allows us to identify the complete series of these events over the past two interglacial-glacial cycles. Their duration decreases and their frequency increases during glacial build-up in both the last and penultimate glacial periods, indicating that ice sheet size affects their character and pacing. The ages of the events are exceptionally well constrained and may thus serve as benchmarks for correlating and calibrating climate records.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                sebastian.bathiany@wur.nl
                Journal
                Sci Rep
                Sci Rep
                Scientific Reports
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2045-2322
                22 March 2018
                22 March 2018
                2018
                : 8
                : 5040
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0791 5666, GRID grid.4818.5, Department of Environmental Sciences, , Wageningen University, ; Wageningen, The Netherlands
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8024, GRID grid.8391.3, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, , University of Exeter, ; Exeter, UK
                Article
                23377
                10.1038/s41598-018-23377-4
                5864911
                29568006
                8fe3f3ab-ebfd-4a45-9476-abb497b74409
                © The Author(s) 2018

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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                : 3 November 2017
                : 12 March 2018
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