Remotely sensing potential climate change tipping points across scales

Abstract

Potential climate tipping points pose a growing risk for societies, and policy is calling for improved anticipation of them. Satellite remote sensing can play a unique role in identifying and anticipating tipping phenomena across scales. Where satellite records are too short for temporal early warning of tipping points, complementary spatial indicators can leverage the exceptional spatial-temporal coverage of remotely sensed data to detect changing resilience of vulnerable systems. Combining Earth observation with Earth system models can improve process-based understanding of tipping points, their interactions, and potential tipping cascades. Such fine-resolution sensing can support climate tipping point risk management across scales.

Climate change could drive critical parts of the Earth system past tipping points, causing large-scale, abrupt and/or irreversible changes that harm societies. Here, the authors suggest that satellite remote sensing can play a unique role in helping manage these profound risks, by providing improved early warning of tipping points across scales.