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Scientific uncertainty and climate change: Part I. Uncertainty and unabated emissions
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 01:37 authored by Lewandowsky, S, Risbey, JS, Smithson, M, Newell, BR, John HunterJohn HunterUncertainty forms an integral part of climate science, and it is often used to argue against mitigative action. This article presents an analysis of uncertainty in climate sensitivity that is robust to a range of assumptions. We show that increasing uncertainty is necessarily associated with greater expected damages from warming, provided the function relating warming to damages is convex. This constraint is unaffected by subjective or cultural risk-perception factors, it is unlikely to be overcome by the discount rate, and it is independent of the presumed magnitude of climate sensitivity. The analysis also extends to “second-order” uncertainty; that is, situations in which experts disagree. Greater disagreement among experts increases the likelihood that the risk of exceeding a global temperature threshold is greater. Likewise, increasing uncertainty requires increasingly greater protective measures against sea level rise. This constraint derives directly from the statistical properties of extreme values. We conclude that any appeal to uncertainty compels a stronger, rather than weaker, concern about unabated warming than in the absence of uncertainty.
History
Publication title
Climatic ChangeVolume
124Issue
1-2Pagination
21-37ISSN
0165-0009Department/School
Institute for Marine and Antarctic StudiesPublisher
Kluwer Academic PublPlace of publication
Van Godewijckstraat 30, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 3311 GzRights statement
Copyright 2014 Springer ScienceRepository Status
- Restricted