Faculty seminar with Frikk Nesje

Frikk Nesje- CV

Title: Balancing the risk of tipping: Early Warning Systems from detection to management

Abstract: Many socio-ecological systems are expected to collapse once pressure exceeds a tipping point. As the exact location of tipping points is almost always unknown, a recent literature has focused on the detection of early warning signals (EWS) of tipping. We demonstrate the necessary steps to operationalize EWS for ecosystem management, shifting the focus from detecting EWS to using them. In a stylized ecosystem model that can generate EWS, we study early warning systems that consist of a tipping indicator (e.g. autocorrelation) and a trigger value. The trigger value determines the rate of false positive and false negative warnings and allows to balance the risk of tipping. Our framework complements the emerging EWS knowledge in the natural sciences with a better understanding of how, when, and why EWS improve management. We further uncover a tension between better information and increased risk, highlighting that EWS may increase the risk of collapse.