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Future Warming and The Carbon Budget

Climate models attempt to reproduce and predict climate systems and flows of carbon between land and atmosphere. Models project future temperature rises based on greenhouse gas emissions and climate feedbacks. Past models have underestimated factors like Arctic shrinkage and precipitation increase. Future warming projections under moderate scenarios show 0.3-1.7°C rise by 2100, while extreme scenarios show 2.6-4.8°C, depending on emissions and feedbacks. Models combine socioeconomic factors to generate emissions scenarios, which are then used as inputs to physical climate models to project climate change.

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47 views2 pages

Future Warming and The Carbon Budget

Climate models attempt to reproduce and predict climate systems and flows of carbon between land and atmosphere. Models project future temperature rises based on greenhouse gas emissions and climate feedbacks. Past models have underestimated factors like Arctic shrinkage and precipitation increase. Future warming projections under moderate scenarios show 0.3-1.7°C rise by 2100, while extreme scenarios show 2.6-4.8°C, depending on emissions and feedbacks. Models combine socioeconomic factors to generate emissions scenarios, which are then used as inputs to physical climate models to project climate change.

Uploaded by

asif
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Future warming and the carbon budget

Further information: Carbon budget and Climate model

Average climate model projections for 2081–2100 relative to 1986–2005, under low and high emission scenarios

Future warming depends on the strengths of climate feedbacks and on emissions of greenhouse gases.[114] The
former are often estimated using climate models. A climate model is a representation of the physical,
chemical, and biological processes that affect the climate system. [115] Models also include changes in the
Earth's orbit, historical changes in the Sun's activity, and volcanic forcing.[116] Computer models attempt to
reproduce and predict the circulation of the oceans, the annual cycle of the seasons, and the flows of carbon
between the land surface and the atmosphere.[117] There are more than two dozen scientific institutions that
develop major climate models.[118] Models project different future temperature rises for given emissions of
greenhouse gases; they also do not fully agree on the strength of different feedbacks on climate sensitivity
and magnitude of inertia of the climate system.[119]

The physical realism of models is tested by examining their ability to simulate contemporary or past
climates.[120] Past models have underestimated the rate of Arctic shrinkage[121] and underestimated the rate of
precipitation increase.[122] Sea level rise since 1990 was underestimated in older models, but more recent
models agree well with observations.[123] The 2017 United States-published National Climate Assessment
notes that "climate models may still be underestimating or missing relevant feedback processes".[124]

Four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are used as input for climate models: "a stringent
mitigation scenario (RCP2.6), two intermediate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0) and one scenario with very
high [greenhouse gas] emissions (RCP8.5)". [125] RCPs only look at concentrations of greenhouse gases, and so
does not include the response of the carbon cycle. [126] Climate model projections summarized in the IPCC Fifth
Assessment Report indicate that, during the 21st century, the global surface temperature is likely to rise a
further 0.3 to 1.7 °C (0.5 to 3.1 °F) in a moderate scenario, or as much as 2.6 to 4.8 °C (4.7 to 8.6 °F) in an
extreme scenario, depending on the rate of future greenhouse gas emissions and on climate feedback
effects.[127]
Four possible future concentration pathways, including CO
2 and other gases' CO
2-equivalents

A subset of climate models add societal factors to a simple physical climate model. These models simulate
how population, economic growth, and energy use affect—and interact with—the physical climate. With this
information, these models can produce scenarios of how greenhouse gas emissions may vary in the future.
This output is then used as input for physical climate models to generate climate change projections. [128] In
some scenarios emissions continue to rise over the century, while others have reduced emissions. [129] Fossil
fuel resources are too abundant for shortages to be relied on to limit carbon emissions in the 21st century. [130]
Emissions scenarios can be combined with modelling of the carbon cycle to predict how atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases might change in the future. [131] According to these combined models, by
2100 the atmospheric concentration of CO2 could be as low as 380 or as high as 1400 ppm, depending on the
socioeconomic scenario and the mitigation scenario.[132]

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