National programme to detect climate tipping points harnesses Leicester expertise

Expertise in detecting signs of climate tipping points from the University of Leicester will be harnessed by a national project to better understand and warn of climate disasters.

Professor Valerio Lucarini from the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences will lead a work package for the Advancing Tipping Point Early Warning (AdvanTip) project, which will focus on the Subpolar Gyre, an ocean current system that could tip quickly and soon.

Led by the University of Exeter with Professor Tim Lenton as principal investigator, the £5 million project is funded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and is part of a wider UK programme to develop early warning systems for climate tipping points.

Tipping points are thresholds in our climate system that potentially lead to large scale change and damage to our environment. However, it is difficult to anticipate when we are reaching a potential tipping point from climate data.

The Subpolar Gyre is a northern part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a large system of rotating currents in the Atlantic Ocean that plays a crucial role in regulating regional and global climate. Collapse of the Subpolar Gyre – potentially triggered by melting Arctic ice – could fundamentally alter conditions in parts of Europe. 

In the UK, this could mean more extreme weather patterns with hotter summers and colder winters; impacting the ability to farm and grow crops; and damaging infrastructure and public health.

The AdvanTip project aims to achieve a breakthrough in early warning of tipping points based on progress in theory, AI and physical understanding.

Professor Valerio Lucarini from the University of Leicester said: “The ongoing climate crisis and mass extinction are extremely serious challenges faced by humanity. A rapidly evolving and increasing interdisciplinary scholarship is addressing causes, impacts, and potential solutions or at least adaptation and mitigation measures.

“A great deal of work is devoted to the understanding of phenomena like extreme events in weather and climate, tipping points, multi/metastability, response to perturbations, long transients in ecosystems, and mass extinctions. 

“While there exists a vast body of literature dealing with the Earth's tipping phenomena, key theoretical advances are needed to radically improve our ability to effectively interpret what we see from both climate models and real-world data.”

The University of Leicester is a world leader in the research area of the mathematics of planet Earth. Professor Lucarini is internationally recognised for his work on the mathematics of climate and is leading the organisation of two upcoming international training and dissemination events. 

From 1-3 July, the University of Leicester will host the workshop ‘Statistical Mechanics of the Climate System and of Ecosystems’ as part of StatPhys29, the leading international conference in statistical physics. The event in Leicester is supported by the American Physical Society, the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, and the London Mathematical Society. This is a stepping stone for a more ambitious event in August 2026 at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge: a one-month residential programme entitled ‘Metastability, Critical Transitions, and Long Transients: General Mathematical Framework Relevance for Our Changing Planet’ led by researchers from the University of Leicester and from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

The AdvanTip research team includes the University of Leicester, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the University of Bordeaux and Utrecht University. Leicester is also involved in major projects delving into tipping points as part of Horizon Europe’s Past2Future, CLimTIP and the European Space Agency’s PREDICT.

Backed by £81 million over five years, ARIA’s Forecasting Tipping Points programme will unite 27 international teams in a collaborative effort to detect the earliest signs of climate tipping points.