Early warning signals for critical transitions: a generalized modeling approach.
Critical transitions are sudden, often irreversible, changes that can occur in a large variety of complex systems; signals that warn of critical transitions are therefore highly desirable. We propose a new method for early warning signals that integrates multiple sources of information and data about the system through the framework of a generalized model. We demonstrate our proposed approach through several examples, including a previously published fisheries model. We regard our method as complementary to existing early warning signals, taking an approach of intermediate complexity between model-free approaches and fully parameterized simulations. One potential advantage of our approach is that, under appropriate conditions, it may reduce the amount of time series data required for a robust early warning signal.
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany. slade@pks.mpg.de
Steven J
SJ
Lade
Thilo
T
Gross
D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004777:Environment; D005398:Fisheries; D005399:Fishes; D020387:Food Chain; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013598:Systems Theory