Stochastic tipping points in climate dynamics.

A crucial question recently raised in climate dynamics concerns abrupt climate transitions: Are they due to a tipping point (TP) being exceeded, or is fast noisy dynamics the cause of their excitation? In this respect, a case study based on a low-order ocean model is developed to show that in an excitable dynamical system perturbed by noise (a possible climate condition) the TPs may have limited physical meaning, with the coherence resonance mechanism being predominant. The analysis is based on an operational definition of stochastic TP, which accounts for the effect of noise and reconciles formally the TP and coherence resonance views.