When a change feeds itself¶
Cross-Domain EchoesShared pattern · Feedback
A warming surface can lose bright snow or ice. With less reflected sunlight, it absorbs more solar energy, adding to the warming that began the change. A bank run has a different substance but a related loop: withdrawals use up available cash, worsening the position of those still waiting and strengthening their reason to withdraw. In both cases, an effect returns as a cause of more change in the same direction. The resemblance is the reinforcing loop, not its speed or eventual outcome. Climate involves physical energy flows; a run also involves expectations, financial claims and choices, and can begin even when the bank’s long-term assets exceed its liabilities.
Choose a role to see its counterpart in both examples. The diagrams show relationships, not measured quantities.
Climate
Ice–albedo feedback
Read Ice–albedo feedbackDomain-specific abstraction
The warming direction of the ice–albedo loop.
In this example: The warming direction of the ice–albedo loop.
Finance
Bank Run
Read Bank RunDomain-specific abstraction
A run with finite immediately available liquidity and a first-mover advantage.
In this example: A run with finite immediately available liquidity and a first-mover advantage.
Follow one direction of each loop; these are selected perturbations, not claims about a unique original cause.
Written comparison
Starting change
Climate
Warming
Finance
Withdrawals
Follow one direction of each loop; these are selected perturbations, not claims about a unique original cause.
What the change alters
Climate
Less reflective cover
Finance
Less immediately available cash
The initial change alters the condition governing the next round. Ice changes reflectivity; withdrawals reduce remaining liquidity. These conditions are counterparts in a causal loop, not interchangeable quantities.
The reinforcing return
Climate
More solar energy absorbed
Finance
Greater incentive to exit early
The consequence strengthens the original direction of change. The right-hand return passes through claimants’ incentives; the left-hand return is a physical energy effect.
What carries across
Look for the return path: does a consequence make another round of the original change more likely or stronger?
Where the comparison stops
Neither closed loop, by itself, determines the entire system’s outcome.
- A reinforcing loop does not imply unlimited growth or predict the final state. Ice–albedo feedback amplifies but does not alone determine climate change.
- No bank-run equation, timescale or policy remedy transfers to climate. Claimants act on incentives and expectations; ice has no agency.
- A bank can run short of immediately available cash while still owning valuable long-term assets. A liquidity shortage is not the same as initial insolvency.
Conditions for this comparison
- The climate drawing follows the warming direction of the ice–albedo loop.
- The selected financial run has runnable claims, limited immediate liquidity and an advantage to earlier exit.
Source entries
Shared pattern
Feedback
Prime
Core Idea
Feedback is the structural arrangement in which a portion of a system's output is routed back to influence its subsequent input, closing a loop between cause and effect.
Climate
Ice–albedo feedback
Domain-specific abstraction
Core Idea
Temperature changes reflective cover; surface albedo changes net shortwave absorption; the radiative perturbation changes temperature in the same direction and feeds back onto cover extent, thickness, timing and impurity state.
Finance
Bank Run
Domain-specific abstraction
Core Idea
Because the immediately available pool is finite, early exit improves an individual claimant's chance of full repayment while each withdrawal worsens the position of those who remain
Structural Signature
The finite liquid pool or backstop