Climatic Implications of Revised IPCC Emissions Scenarios, the Kyoto Protocol and Quantification of Uncertainties |
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Authors: | Suraje Dessai Mike Hulme |
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Institution: | (1) School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK;(2) Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK |
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Abstract: | In December 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) adopted the Kyoto Protocol. This paper
describes a framework that models the climatic implications of this international agreement, using Monte Carlo simulations
and the preliminary Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenarios (SRES). Emissions scenarios (including intervention
scenarios), climate sensitivity, and terrestrial carbon sink are the key sampled model parameters. This framework gives prior
probability distributions to these parameters and, using a simple climate model, posterior distributions of global temperature
change are determined for the future.
Our exercise showed that the Kyoto Protocol's effectiveness will be mostly dependent upon which SRES world evolves. In some
worlds the Protocol decreases the warming considerably but in others it is almost irrelevant. We exemplified this approach
with a current FCCC issue, namely “hot air”. This modelling framework provides a probabilistic assessment of climate policies,
which can be useful for decision-makers involved in global climate change management.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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Keywords: | climate change climate policy global modelling greenhouse gas emissions scenarios uncertainty analysis |
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