Uncertainty Analysis of Climate Change and Policy Response
Name
MITJPSPGC_Rpt95.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
175.02 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ccf5c1c86b8440631afdac1efa7e48fa
Author(s)
Webster, Mort
Forest, Chris
Reilly, John
Babiker, Mustafa
Kicklighter, David
Mayer, Monika
Prinn, Ronald
Sarofim, Marcus
Sokolov, Andrei
Stone, Peter
Date Issued
December 2003
Journal
Climatic Change
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Webster, M., Forest, C., Reilly, J. et al. Uncertainty Analysis of Climate Change and Policy Response. Climatic Change 61, 295–320 (2003).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
To aid climate policy decisions, accurate quantitative descriptions of the uncertainty in climate outcomes under various possible policies are needed. Here, we apply an earth systems model to describe the uncertainty in climate projections under two different policy scenarios. This study illustrates an internally consistent uncertainty analysis of one climate assessment modeling framework, propagating uncertainties in both economic and climate components, and constraining climate parameter uncertainties based on observation. We find that in the absence of greenhouse gas emissions restrictions, there is a one in forty chance that global mean surface temperature change will exceed 4.9°C by the year 2100. A policy case with aggressive emissions reductions over time lowers the temperature change to a one in forty chance of exceeding 3.2°C, thus reducing but not eliminating the chance of substantial warming.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global Change
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1023/b:clim.0000004564.09961.9f
