@article {887481,
	title = {Tipping elements and climate-economic shocks: Pathways toward integrated assessment},
	journal = {Earth{\textquoteright}s Future},
	year = {2016},
	abstract = {<p>
	The literature on the costs of climate change often draws a link between climatic {\textquoteleft}tipping points{\textquoteright} and large economic shocks, frequently called {\textquoteleft}catastrophes{\textquoteright}. The phrase {\textquoteleft}tipping points{\textquoteright} in this context can be misleading. In popular and social scientific discourse, {\textquoteleft}tipping points{\textquoteright} involve abrupt state changes. For some climatic {\textquoteleft}tipping points,{\textquoteright} the commitment to a state change may occur abruptly, but the change itself may be rate-limited and take centuries or longer to realize. Additionally, the connection between climatic {\textquoteleft}tipping points{\textquoteright} and economic losses is tenuous, though emerging empirical and process-model-based tools provide pathways for investigating it. We propose terminology to clarify the distinction between {\textquoteleft}tipping points{\textquoteright} in the popular sense, the critical thresholds exhibited by climatic and social {\textquoteleft}tipping elements,{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}economic shocks{\textquoteright}. The last may be associated with tipping elements, gradual climate change, or non-climatic triggers. We illustrate our proposed distinctions by surveying the literature on climatic tipping elements, climatically sensitive social tipping elements, and climate-economic shocks, and we propose a research agenda to advance the integrated assessment of all three.
</p>
},
	url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000362/abstract},
	author = {Robert E. Kopp and Rachael Shwom and Gernot Wagner and Jiacan Yuan}
}
