Tipping Points: Visual experiments on disruptive climate system changes due to global warming

With human activities and rising temperatures, large-scale elements of the Earth’s climate system have the potential to tip into new states.

These are visualisations of a range of these tipping elements.

With the increasing warming of the global climate system, environmental changes can occur first slowly and then suddenly in various regions of the world. The moment of this tilting into a new state is called Tipping Point. Once set in motion, these non-linear processes can amplify themselves and, through complex interactions, may lead to a further increase in temperatures and global warming. The further effects are often hard to predict and partly irreversible. Examples of climate tipping elements are the disappearance of the boreal forests, the retreat of Arctic sea ice, the destabilisation of the Indian monsoon or the loss of coral reefs. In total there are about 16 tipping elements.

In the summer semester 2019, ten of these climate tipping elements were staged by design students of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences as spatial installations in order to make the devastating dynamics of these possible tipping points vivid and sensual. This involved the depiction of dynamic processes, the visualisation of scientific data and findings as well as the handling of the uncertain and the unpredictable.

Through thematic introductions, experimental studies with material and mechanisms, rational observations and poetic abstractions, a space full of tipping points was created that operate in a field of tension between control and the unpredictable. The result is a video documentation of these installations.

Creative Lead

Prof. Alexandra Martini

Prof. Myriel Milicevic

Prof. Anne Quirynen

Thanks to / Scientific Lead

Dr. Marc Wiedermann

Prof. Boris Müller

Julius Garbe

Lucia Layritz

Nico Wunderling

Maria Zeitz

Teams

Arctic Sea Ice

Viccha Kreng

Linus Langkabel

Greenland Ice Sheet

Josephine Kähler

Kira Vogtmann

Antarctic Ice Sheet

Till Schneeberger

Pascal Struck

Permafrost

Peter Schwarz

Aaron Schwertfeger

Robin Wenzel

Methane Hydrates (marine)

Marielouise Hippler

Julia Scholz

Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

Undine Gnauck

Leonie Schatter

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Jan Lindstedt

Jakob Mayer

Indian Monsoon

Adele Heymann

Lotti Maurer

West African Monsoon

Henrike Haber

Vincenzo Werner

Boreal Forests & Amazon Rainforest

Kenny Löffler

Mariana Reinhardt

Lele Schlaich

Muhammed Yapici

Video Crew

Camera

Prof. Anne Quirynen

Mathis Horlacher

Video Editing

Mathis Horlacher

Sound Recording

Kenny Löffler

Linus Langkabel

Peter Schwarz

Muhammed Yapici

Mathis Horlacher

Sound Editing

Mathis Horlacher

Kenny Löffler

Linus Langkabel

Muhamed Yapici

Video & Audio Editing “AMOC”

Leonie Schatter

Set Photography

Jan Lindstedt

Jakob Mayer

References

Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system

Timothy M. Lenton, Hermann Held, Elmar Kriegler, Jim W. Hall, Wolfgang Lucht, Stefan Rahmstorf, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Feb 2008, 105 (6) 1786-1793