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Early-warning signals for critical transitions

Abstract

Complex dynamical systems, ranging from ecosystems to financial markets and the climate, can have tipping points at which a sudden shift to a contrasting dynamical regime may occur. Although predicting such critical points before they are reached is extremely difficult, work in different scientific fields is now suggesting the existence of generic early-warning signals that may indicate for a wide class of systems if a critical threshold is approaching.

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Figure 1: Some characteristic changes in non-equilibrium dynamics as a system approaches a catastrophic bifurcation (such as F 1 or F 2, Box 1).
Figure 2: Early warning signals for a critical transition in a time series generated by a model of a harvested population 77 driven slowly across a bifurcation.
Figure 3: Ecosystems may undergo a predictable sequence of self-organized spatial patterns as they approach a critical transition.
Figure 4: Critical slowing down indicated by an increase in lag-1 autocorrelation in climate dynamics.
Figure 5: Subtle changes in brain activity before an epileptic seizure may be used as an early warning signal.

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Acknowledgements

Our work was supported by the Institute Para Limes and by the South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies. The work of S.R.C. is also supported by the US National Science Foundation. The research of M.R. and V.D. is supported by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research, Earth and Life Sciences, in the case of M.R. through a Vidi grant. The work of J.B. is supported by the European Heads of Research Councils, the European Science Foundation and the European Commission Sixth Framework Programme through a European Young Investigator Award. G.S. was supported by Deutsche Bank Jameson Complexity Studies Fund, and by an NSF/NOAA CAMEO Grant NA08OAR4320894.

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Scheffer, M., Bascompte, J., Brock, W. et al. Early-warning signals for critical transitions. Nature 461, 53–59 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08227

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