The literature on the costs of climate change often draws a link between climatic 'tipping points' and economic catastrophes. The use of the phrase 'tipping point' in this context is less restrictive than in popular and social scientific discourse. Whereas 'tipping points' generally involve abrupt changes, for some climatic ones, the commitment to a change may occur abruptly, but the change itself may take centuries or longer to realize. Additionally, the connection between climatic 'tipping points' and economic losses is tenuous, though emerging empirical and process-model-based tools provide pathways for investigating it. We propose terminology to distinguish 'tipping points' in the sense popularized by Gladwell from climatic 'tipping elements' (in the sense introduced by Lenton and colleagues), as well as from economic catastrophes. We illustrate our proposed distinction by surveying the literature on climatic tipping elements, climatically-sensitive social tipping points, and economic catastrophes, and we propose a research agenda for investigating all three.
read more...↧