Don't just do something, stand there! Reflections on the counterintuitive behavior of complex systems, seen through the eyes of System Dynamics, Systems Thinking and simulation.
Research shows that some forests in the Rockies aren’t recovering from wildfires. Evidence for declining forest resilience to wildfires under climate change Abstract Forest resilience to climate change is a global concern given the potential effects of increased disturbance activity, warming temperatures and increased moisture stress on plants. We used a multi‐regional dataset of 1485 … Continue reading “Forest Tipping in the Rockies”
There’s an interesting discussion of forest tipping points in a new paper in Science: Global Resilience of Tropical Forest and Savanna to Critical Transitions Marina Hirota, Milena Holmgren, Egbert H. Van Nes, Marten Scheffer It has been suggested that tropical forest and savanna could represent alternative stable states, implying critical transitions at tipping points in … Continue reading “Forest Cover Tipping Points”
This is a model of forest stability and transitions, inspired by: Global Resilience of Tropical Forest and Savanna to Critical Transitions Marina Hirota, Milena Holmgren, Egbert H. Van Nes, Marten Scheffer It has been suggested that tropical forest and savanna could represent alternative stable states, implying critical transitions at tipping points in response to altered … Continue reading “Forest Cover Tipping Points”
The concept of tipping points is powerful, but sometimes a bit muddled. Things that get described as tipping points often sound to me like mere dramatic events or nonlinear effects, simple thermodynamic irreversibilities, or exponential signals emerging unexpectedly from noise. These may play a role in tipping points, and lead to surprises, but I don’t … Continue reading “Tipping points”
I’m lucky to live in a beautiful place, with lots of wildlife, open spaces, relative quiet and dark skies, and clean water. Keeping it that way is expensive. The cost is not money; it’s the time it takes to keep people from loving it to death, or simply exploiting it until the essence is lost. … Continue reading “How Beauty Dies”
There are lots of interesting developments in machine learning for time series modeling, but can an AI write about systems sensibly? I decided to try a few free online AI content generators. Using system dynamics modeling for project delay and disruption 1. System Dynamics Modeling (SDM) System dynamics modeling is a mathematical model that helps … Continue reading “Can AI do SD?”
PNAS has a new article on climate catastrophe mechanisms, focused on the social side, not natural tipping points. The article includes a causal loop diagram capturing some of the key feedbacks: The diagram makes an unconventional choice: link polarity is denoted by dashed lines, rather than the usual + and – designations at arrowheads. Per … Continue reading “Climate Catastrophe Loops”
I ran across this cool article on network dynamics, and thought the model would be an interesting application for Ventity: Coupled catastrophes: sudden shifts cascade and hop among interdependent systems Charles D. Brummitt, George Barnett and Raissa M. D’Souza Abstract An important challenge in several disciplines is to understand how sudden changes can propagate among coupled systems. Examples … Continue reading “Coupled Catastrophes”
A while back I reviewed an interesting model of hormone interactions triggered by stress. The bottom line: I think there might be a lot of interesting policy implications lurking in this model, waiting for an intrepid explorer with more subject matter expertise than I have. I think the crucial point here is that the structure … Continue reading “Biological Dynamics of Stress: the Outer Loops”
Project management has been one of the most productive and successful areas of system dynamics. And yet, when I recently looked at project management tools and advice, I couldn’t find a hint of SD dynamic insights into product management. Lists of reasons for project failure almost entirely neglect endogenous explanations. Nothing about rework, late change orders, … Continue reading “Where are the dynamic project managers?”