arXiv subjects

Johan Rockström

Publications and source records attributed to Johan Rockström.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

AI-Assisted Scientific Assessment: A Case Study on Climate Change

The emerging paradigm of AI co-scientists focuses on tasks characterized by repeatable verification, where agents explore search spaces in 'guess and check' loops. This paradigm does not extend to problems where repeated evaluation is impossible and ground truth is established by the consensus synthesis of theory and existing evidence. We evaluate a Gemini-based AI environment designed to support collaborative scientific assessment, integrated into a standard scientific workflow. In collaboration with a diverse group of 13 scientists working in the field of climate science, we tested the system on a complex topic: the stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Our results show that AI can accelerate the scientific workflow. The group produced a comprehensive synthesis of 79 papers through 104 revision cycles in just over 46 person-hours. AI contribution was significant: most AI-generated content was retained in the report. AI also helped maintain logical consistency and presentation quality. However, expert additions were crucial to ensure its acceptability: less than half of the report was produced by AI. Furthermore, substantial oversight was required to expand and elevate the content to rigorous scientific standards.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2026

Quantifying the safe operating space for the Amazon rainforest under climate change and deforestation

The Amazon rainforest is considered one of the core tipping elements in the climate system with a potential tipping point from rainforest to savannah between 2 and 6 °C of global warming. However, ongoing deforestation constitutes an additional major threat to the Amazon rainforest that acts simultaneously to undermine the stability of the rainforest. Both effects could synergistically compound and lower the overall threshold in global warming and deforestation when tipping points may be crossed. Here, we quantify the safe operating space of the Amazon rainforest, which we define as the joint global warming and deforestation conditions where resilience of the system as a whole is preserved. Based on the underlying environmental data from a global climate model, we use a reduced complexity model and explicitly take into account the adaptive capacities of the forest as well as the atmospheric moisture recycling. We quantify that under current conditions of around 1.4 °C of global warming and around 17 % of deforestation, more than a third of the Amazon rainforest is at high risk of crossing critical thresholds. We therefore conclude that the Amazon rainforest may have already left its safe operating space. Furthermore, we find that the historic and projected deforestation pattern could be particularly detrimental. Our results support the need for ambitious climate action to hold the Paris climate target and also nature protection to end net deforestation.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2026

Planetary climate interactions of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP), Earth's "Third Pole", profoundly shapes the Asian monsoon and regional climate and exerts far-reaching influence on the global climate system. Yet its role in organizing planetary-scale climate interactions remains poorly quantified. Here we develop a climate network framework to explicitly resolve the planetary teleconnection architecture associated with the QTP across historical observations and future climate projections, with physical consistency assessed using Lagrangian trajectory diagnostics and targeted numerical experiments. We uncover a persistent and directional interaction structure linking the QTP with multiple major climate tipping elements. In particular, we identify a robust tripolar interaction mode coupling the QTP with both the Arctic and Antarctica through coherent atmospheric-oceanic pathways. Our findings establish the QTP as a critical planetary climate integrator, revealing a significant blind spot in current climate models and risk frameworks regarding cascading tipping dynamics in a warming world.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2022

A sustainable waste-to-protein system to maximise waste resource utilisation for developing food- and feed-grade protein solutions

A waste-to-protein system that integrates a range of waste-to-protein upgrading technologies has the potential to converge innovations on zero-waste and protein security to ensure a sustainable protein future. We present a global overview of food-safe and feed-safe waste resource potential and technologies to sort and transform such waste streams with compositional quality characteristics into food-grade or feed-grade protein. The identified streams are rich in carbon and nutrients and absent of pathogens and hazardous contaminants, including food waste streams, lignocellulosic waste from agricultural residues and forestry, and contaminant-free waste from the food and drink industry. A wide range of chemical, physical, and biological treatments can be applied to extract nutrients and convert waste-carbon to fermentable sugars or other platform chemicals for subsequent conversion to protein. Our quantitative analyses suggest that the waste-to-protein system has the potential to maximise recovery of various low-value resources and catalyse the transformative solutions toward a sustainable protein future. However, novel protein regulation processes remain expensive and resource intensive in many countries, with protracted timelines for approval. This poses a significant barrier to market expansion, despite accelerated research and development in waste-to-protein technologies and novel protein sources. Thus, the waste-to-protein system is an important initiative to promote metabolic health across the lifespan and tackle the global hunger crisis.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Conceptualizing World-Earth System resilience: Exploring transformation pathways towards a safe and just operating space for humanity

We develop a framework within which to conceptualize World-Earth System resilience. Our notion of World-Earth System resilience emphasizes the need to move beyond the basin of attraction notion of resilience as we are not in a basin we can stay in. We are on a trajectory to a new basin and we have to avoid falling into undesirable basins. We thus focus on `pathway resilience', i.e. the relative number of paths that allow us to move from the transitional operating space we occupy now as we leave the Holocene basin to a safe and just operating space in the Anthropocene. We develop a mathematical model to formalize this conceptualization and demonstrate how interactions between earth system resilience (biophysical processes) and world system resilience (social processes) impact pathway resilience. Our findings show that building earth system resilience is probably our only chance to reach a safe and just operating space. We also illustrate the importance of world system dynamics by showing how the notion of fairness coupled with regional inequality affects pathway resilience.

physics.soc-ph↗