Several subsystems of the Earth may respond highly nonlinearly at critical levels of anthropogenic forcing. It is paramount to identify safe operating spaces for humanity and the planet in terms of critical forcing levels, in order to prevent harmful transitions to alternative, undesirable states of the Earth system. Mechanisms leading to such abrupt transitions are porrly understood, and further research is urgently needed. Our session welcomes studies about subsystems that may exhibit abrupt transitions, and couplings between them, by focussing on paleoclimatic records and abrupt transitions therein. Particular interest is placed on empirical or modeling basis to study abrupt climatic transitions that have occurred in past warm and cold climates, assessing interactions between different Tipping Elements and the ecological and societal impacts of past abrupt transitions, extending existing concepts of statistical Early Warning Signals in paleoclimatic proxy records, and testing whether models adequately represent the observed past tipping events.

• GC - Global Environmental Change

• EGU: European Geosciences Union -