Teng Liu

2025

1. Nat. Geosci.

   

   Destabilization of Earth system tipping elements

   Niklas Boers^*, Teng Liu^*, Sebastian Bathiany, and 8 more authors

   Nature Geoscience, 2025

   Abs Bib

   There is rising concern that several parts of the Earth system may abruptly transition to alternative stable states in response to anthropogenic climate and land-use change. Key candidates of such tipping elements include the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the South American monsoon system and the Amazon rainforest. Owing to the complex dynamics and feedbacks between them via oceanic and atmospheric coupling, the levels of anthropogenic forcing at which transitions to alternative states can be expected remain uncertain. Here we demonstrate how such interactions can generate spurious signals and potentially mask genuine signs of destabilization. We further review and present observation-based evidence that the stability of these four tipping elements has declined in recent decades, suggesting that they have moved towards their critical thresholds, which may be crossed within the range of unmitigated anthropogenic warming. Our results call for better monitoring of these tipping elements and for increased efforts to stop greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change.

   @article{boers2025destabilization,
     title = {Destabilization of Earth system tipping elements},
     author = {Boers, Niklas and Liu, Teng and Bathiany, Sebastian and Ben-Yami, Maya and Blaschke, Lana L and Bochow, Nils and Boulton, Chris A and Lenton, Timothy M and Morr, Andreas and Nian, Da and others},
     journal = {Nature Geoscience},
     volume = {18},
     number = {10},
     pages = {949--960},
     year = {2025},
     dimensions = {true},
     doi = {10.1038/s41561-025-01787-0},
     publisher = {Nature Publishing Group UK London},
   }

2023

1. Nat. Clim. Change

   

   Teleconnections among tipping elements in the Earth system

   Teng Liu, Dean Chen, Lan Yang, and 8 more authors

   Nature Climate Change, 2023

   Abs Bib PDF Supp

   Tipping elements are components of the Earth system that may shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another at specific thresholds. It is not well understood to what degree tipping of one system can influence other regions or tipping elements. Here, we propose a climate network approach to analyse the global impacts of a prominent tipping element, the Amazon Rainforest Area (ARA). We find that the ARA exhibits strong correlations with regions such as the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and West Antarctic ice sheet. Models show that the identified teleconnection propagation path between the ARA and the TP is robust under climate change. In addition, we detect that TP snow cover extent has been losing stability since 2008. We further uncover that various climate extremes between the ARA and the TP are synchronized under climate change. Our framework highlights that tipping elements can be linked and also the potential predictability of cascading tipping dynamics.

   @article{liu2023teleconnections,
     title = {Teleconnections among tipping elements in the Earth system},
     author = {Liu, Teng and Chen, Dean and Yang, Lan and Meng, Jun and Wang, Zanchenling and Ludescher, Josef and Fan, Jingfang and Yang, Saini and Chen, Deliang and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen and others},
     journal = {Nature Climate Change},
     volume = {13},
     number = {1},
     pages = {67--74},
     dimensions = {true},
     doi = {10.1038/s41558-022-01558-4},
     year = {2023},
     publisher = {Nature Publishing Group UK London},
   }

2022

1. Chin. Phys. Lett.

   

   Renormalization group theory of eigen microstates

   Teng Liu, Gao-Ke Hu, Jia-Qi Dong, and 3 more authors

   Chinese Physics Letters, 2022

   Abs Bib PDF

   We propose a renormalization group (RG) theory of eigen microstates, which are introduced in the statistical ensemble composed of microstates obtained from experiments or computer simulations. A microstate in the ensemble can be considered as a linear superposition of eigen microstates with probability amplitudes equal to their eigenvalues. Under the renormalization of a factor b, the largest eigenvalue σ1 has two trivial fixed points at low and high temperature limits and a critical fixed point with the RG relation, where β and ν are the critical exponents of order parameter and correlation length, respectively. With the Ising model in different dimensions, it has been demonstrated that the RG theory of eigen microstates is able to identify the critical point and to predict critical exponents and the universality class. Our theory can be used in research of critical phenomena both in equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems without considering the Hamiltonian, which is the foundation of Wilson’s RG theory and is absent for most complex systems.

   @article{liu2022renormalization,
     title = {Renormalization group theory of eigen microstates},
     author = {Liu, Teng and Hu, Gao-Ke and Dong, Jia-Qi and Fan, Jing-Fang and Liu, Mao-Xin and Chen, Xiao-Song},
     journal = {Chinese Physics Letters},
     doi = {10.1088/0256-307X/39/8/080503},
     dimensions = {true},
     volume = {39},
     number = {8},
     pages = {080503},
     year = {2022},
     publisher = {IOP Publishing},
   }