<
https://theconversation.com/crashes-blackouts-and-climate-tipping-points-how-can-we-tell-when-a-system-is-close-to-the-edge-236683>
"According to the infamous myth, groups of lemmings sometimes run off cliffs to
their collective doom. Imagine you are one of these rodents: on a sunny day you
join your companions in a joyous climb up a mountain beneath clear skies,
traipsing across grass and dirt and rock, glad to be among friends, until
suddenly you plunge through the brisk air and all goes black.
The edge of the cliff is what scientists call a “critical point”: the spot
where the behaviour of a system (such as a group of lemmings) suddenly goes
from one type of state (happily running) to a very different type of state
(plummeting), often with catastrophic results.
Lemmings don’t actually charge off cliffs, but many real-world systems do
experience critical points and abrupt disasters, such as stock market crashes,
power grid failures, and tipping points in climate systems and ecosystems.
Critical points aren’t always literal points in space or time. They can be
values of some system parameter – such as investor confidence, environmental
temperature, or power demand – that marks the transition to instability.
Can we tell when a system is close to a cliff, and perhaps act to stop it going
off the edge? What can we measure about a share market or ecosystem that could
help us predict how far it is from such a critical point?
We have developed a new method for doing exactly this in real-world systems.
Our work is published this week in
Physical Review X."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
