I didn't realize "escalate" implied exponential growth. I am now torn as to whether advantages scale linearly or exponentially in go. It may depend on how strong the players are. (i.e., do you actually know how to punish that?) It can easily scale exponentially if the player with the slight disadvantage tries something crazy to catch up.

I don't think early mistakes in go are less severe in an absolute sense than mistakes in chess-- but go gives you more time to recover (and more time for your opponent to screw up), so relatively speaking they might be.

9x9 go is more similar to chess in that a single mistake is most likely game ending.

EDIT: having thought about this further, I think advantage in go scales linearly. Having a small advantage does not make you more likely to gain additional advantages. Assuming correct play from opponent, etc..