Causal feedbacks in climate change

Abstract

Although the correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature is well documented, it is difficult to show causality from the data. This study uses insight from dynamical systems theory to show that internal Earth system mechanisms largely control climate dynamics, rather than orbital forcing, and temperature does have a reinforcing feedback on greenhouse-gas concentrations. The statistical association between temperature and greenhouse gases over glacial cycles is well documented1, but causality behind this correlation remains difficult to extract directly from the data. A time lag of CO2 behind Antarctic temperature—originally thought to hint at a driving role for temperature2,3—is absent4,5 at the last deglaciation, but recently confirmed at the last ice age inception6 and the end of the earlier termination II (ref. 7). We show that such variable time lags are typical for complex nonlinear systems such as the climate, prohibiting straightforward use of correlation lags to infer causation. However, an insight from dynamical systems theory8 now allows us to circumvent the classical challenges of unravelling causation from multivariate time series. We build on this insight to demonstrate directly from ice-core data that, over glacial–interglacial timescales, climate dynamics are largely driven by internal Earth system mechanisms, including a marked positive feedback effect from temperature variability on greenhouse-gas concentrations.

Cite this article

van Nes, E., Scheffer, M., Brovkin, V. et al. Causal feedbacks in climate change. Nature Clim Change 5, 445–448 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2568

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