<< ️Model studies indicate that many climate subsystems, especially ecosystems, may be vulnerable to 'tipping': a 'catastrophic process' in which a system, driven by gradually changing external factors, abruptly transitions (or 'collapses') from a preferred state to a less desirable one. In ecosystems, the emergence of spatial patterns has traditionally been interpreted as a possible 'early warning signal' for tipping. More recently, however, pattern formation has been proposed to serve a fundamentally different role: as a mechanism through which an (eco)system may 'evade tipping' by forming stable patterns that persist beyond the tipping point. >>
<< ️Mathematically, tipping is typically associated with a saddle-node bifurcation, while pattern formation is normally driven by a Turing bifurcation. Therefore, (AA) study the co-dimension 2 Turing-fold bifurcation and investigate the question: 'When can patterns initiated by the Turing bifurcation enable a system to evade tipping?' >>
AA << develop (their) approach for a class of phase-field models and subsequently apply it to -component reaction-diffusion systems -- a class of PDEs often used in ecosystem modeling. (AA) demonstrate that a two-component system of modulation equations governs pattern formation near a Turing-fold bifurcation, and that tipping will be evaded when a critical parameter, β, is positive. (They) derive explicit expressions for β, allowing one to determine whether a given system may evade tipping. Moreover, (They) show numerically that this system exhibits rich behavior, ranging from stable, stationary, spatially quasi-periodic patterns to irregular, spatio-temporal, chaos-like dynamics. >>
Dock Staal, Arjen Doelman. The evasion of tipping: pattern formation near a Turing-fold bifurcation. arXiv: 2506.22251v1 [math.DS]. Jun 27, 2025.
Also: disorder & fluctuations, transition, in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html
Keywords: gst, disorder & fluctuations, pattern formation, Turing-fold bifurcation, transitions, tipping, collapse