Social tipping processes have been identified as potential mechanisms for triggering necessary socio-technical transformations to avoid or mitigate disastrous climate futures. But, the coupling of social and climate systems remains comparatively under-defined. Here, we explore how (anticipated) changes to climate systems can instigate necessary positive transformations within social systems --- the wanted social tipping points. Exemplarily adopting novel survey data from the United States, we

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... vestigate how sea-level rise (SLR) risk perceptions shape climate change relevant behavioral intentions and policies. We find that SLR risk perceptions are strongly positively related to a diverse set of behaviors and support for policy measures under analysis in this study. Furthermore, we find that SLR perceptions are one of the strongest drivers toward climate change behavioral intentions, comparatively stronger than many other common individual-level determinants (e.g., political attitudes or different forms of trust). Our findings emphasize the potential role of SLR perceptions as instigators of social tipping dynamics. Heightened risk perceptions could be influential in transcending the temporal barriers presented by the necessity for contemporary socio-technical transformations to mitigate future climate impacts --- serving as a normatively desirable trigger of positive (wanted) social tipping dynamics.