Fig. 9: Sensitivity of ecosystem components at critical thresholds. | Communications Earth & Environment

Fig. 9: Sensitivity of ecosystem components at critical thresholds.

From: Expert elicitation of state shifts and divergent sensitivities to climate warming across northern ecosystems

Fig. 9

Expert assessment of the sensitivity to state shifts of ecosystem components at critical thresholds identified along a 3700 km latitudinal transect in northeastern North America. The coloured circles show contrasting states (initial and resulting) at each critical threshold. The response time is the estimated number of years (log scale) necessary for a component to shift from an initial to a resulting state under a warmer climate (i.e., a step change of 5 °C increase in annual air temperature). The southernmost modern-day location of a given contrasting state is its critical threshold. Overlaid spheres with letters indicate that a warming-induced change of a given component (L: lakes, P: permafrost, V: vegetation) is the key determinant of the response time of another component. Sensitivity estimates of all components are combined in the right panel, where locations of critical thresholds are vertically jittered for visualisation purposes.

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