Figure 3. Direct comparison of exceedance year: strategy (a) vs. strategy (c), N = 1,000 Monte Carlo trials

Each point represents a single trial under identical parameter draws. Horizontal axis: year in which strategy (a) (supervision reinforcement only) first exceeds C_max. Vertical axis: year in which strategy (c) (multi-metric flow control) first exceeds C_max. Coordinate (31, 31) denotes trials where neither strategy exceeded C_max within the 30-year horizon. Parameter ranges: initial C_max usage 10–50%, annual V growth 10–27%, annual L growth 10–40%, HITL linear increase (a) 10–20% / (c) 2–8%, composite suppression 50–95%, suppression decay 5–50 yr.

(c) outlasted (a) (a) outlasted (c) Same year y = x (equal performance)

Trials where (c) outlasted (a)

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Trials where (a) outlasted (c)

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Tied (same year)

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Note: The dominance of (c) is robust across the sampled parameter space. Even under parameter draws maximally favourable to supervision reinforcement (high HITL growth rate, low V growth rate), multi-metric flow control matches or exceeds supervision reinforcement in the vast majority of trials.