This paper presents an evaluation of the global and regional consequences of climate change for heat extremes, water resources, river and coastal flooding, droughts, agriculture and energy use. It presents change in hazard and resource base under different rates of climate change (representative concentration pathways (RCP)), and socio-economic impacts are estimated for each combination of RCP and shared socioeconomic pathway. Uncertainty in the regional pattern of climate change is characterised by CMIP5 climate model projections. The analysis adopts a novel approach using relationships between level of warming and impact to rapidly estimate impacts under any climate forcing. The projections provided here can be used to inform assessments of the implications of climate change. At the global scale all the consequences of climate change considered here are adverse, with large increases under the highest rates of warming. Under the highest forcing the global average annual chance of a major heatwave increases from 5% now to 97% in 2100, the average proportion of time in drought increases from 7% to 27%, and the average chance of the current 50 year flood increases from 2% to 7%. The socio-economic impacts of these climate changes are determined by socio-economic scenario. There is variability in impact across regions, reflecting variability in projected changes in precipitation and temperature. The range in the estimated impacts can be large, due to uncertainty in future emissions and future socio-economic conditions and scientific uncertainty in how climate changes in response to future emissions. For the temperature-based indicators, the largest source of scientific uncertainty is in the estimated magnitude of equilibrium climate sensitivity, but for the indicators determined by precipitation the largest source is in the estimated spatial and seasonal pattern of changes in precipitation. By 2100, the range across socio-economic scenario is often greater than the range across the forcing levels.
The global and regional impacts of climate change under representative concentration pathway forcings and shared socioeconomic pathway socioeconomic scenarios
N. Arnell,J. Lowe,D. Bernie,R. Nicholls,Sally Brown,A. Challinor,T. Osborn
Published 2019 in Environmental Research Letters
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2019
- Venue
Environmental Research Letters
- Publication date
2019-08-14
- Fields of study
Geography, Physics, Economics, Environmental Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- climate change
The shift in climate conditions and related hazards evaluated here across warming levels, regions, and future scenarios.
Aliases: climate change impacts
- cmip5 climate models
The coupled climate-model ensemble used to characterize uncertainty in regional patterns of future climate change.
Aliases: CMIP5, Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5
- drought
Periods of unusually low water availability used here as a climate-impact indicator.
Aliases: droughts
- equilibrium climate sensitivity
The long-term global warming response to a sustained doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide used as a source of temperature-related uncertainty.
Aliases: ECS
- flooding
River and coastal flood hazards assessed through changes in flood occurrence and return-period chance.
Aliases: river flooding, coastal flooding, river and coastal flooding
- heat extremes
High-temperature events used as a hazard indicator, including major heatwaves.
Aliases: heatwave, major heatwave
- precipitation change pattern
The spatial and seasonal distribution of projected precipitation changes used to explain uncertainty in precipitation-driven indicators.
Aliases: spatial and seasonal pattern of changes in precipitation
- representative concentration pathways
Greenhouse-gas forcing trajectories used to represent alternative future emissions and warming levels in the projections.
Aliases: RCP, RCPs
- shared socioeconomic pathways
Alternative socio-economic futures used to estimate how human development conditions shape impacts.
Aliases: SSP, SSPs
REFERENCES
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