communicating the probabilities of extreme surface temperature outcomes沟通的概率极端表面温度的结果.pdfVIP

Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2012, 2, 538-545 /10.4236/acs.2012.24049 Published Online October 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/acs) Communicating the Probabilities of Extreme Surface Temperature Outcomes * Nathan Rive, Gunnar Myhre Center for International Climate and Environmental Research—Oslo (CICERO), Oslo, Norway * Email: gunnar.myhre@cicero.uio.no Received April 1, 2012; revised May 31, 2012; accepted June 10, 2012 ABSTRACT The magnitude of the future global warming is uncertain, but the possible dramatic changes associated with high tem- peratures have seen rising attention in the literature. Projections of temperature change in the literature are often pre- sented in probabilistic terms and typically highlight the most likely ranges of future temperature under assumed emis- sion scenarios. However, focusing on these high probability outcomes of global warming omits important information related to the threats of low-probability but high-impact outcomes under more extreme change. As such, we argue that the literature should place more emphasis on communicating the probabilities of extreme temperature change, in a way that is accessible to policymakers and the general public. The damage associated with climate change is likely to be non-linear with temperature, and thus extreme temperature changes may pose a larger risk than the most likely out- comes. We use a simple climate model to explore the probabilities of high surface temperature under business as usual emissions scenarios, given current knowledge of the climate system. In a business as usual scenario (