Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement aims to address the gap between existing climate policies and policies consistent with “holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 C”. The feasibility of meeting the target has been questioned both in terms of the possible requirement for negative emission...
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ftleedsuniv:oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:132681 2024-05-19T07:46:37+00:00 Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement Holden, P. Edwards, N.R. Ridgewell, A. Wilkinson, R.D. Fraedrich, K. Lunkeit, F. Pollitt, H.E. Mercure, J.-F. Salas, P. Lam, A. Knoblock, F. Chewpreecha, U. Vinuales, J.E. 2018-07 text https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/132681/ https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/132681/1/2018_Holden_PPPP_NCC_preprint.pdf en eng Nature Publishing Group https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/132681/1/2018_Holden_PPPP_NCC_preprint.pdf Holden, P., Edwards, N.R., Ridgewell, A. et al. (10 more authors) (2018) Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement. Nature Climate Change, 8. pp. 609-613. ISSN 1758-678X Article PeerReviewed 2018 ftleedsuniv 2024-04-23T23:37:50Z The Paris Agreement aims to address the gap between existing climate policies and policies consistent with “holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 C”. The feasibility of meeting the target has been questioned both in terms of the possible requirement for negative emissions and ongoing debate on the sensitivity of the climate–carbon-cycle system. Using a sequence of ensembles of a fully dynamic three-dimensional climate–carbon-cycle model, forced by emissions from an integrated assessment model of regional-level climate policy, economy, and technological transformation, we show that a reasonable interpretation of the Paris Agreement is still technically achievable. Specifically, limiting peak (decadal) warming to less than 1.7 °C, or end-of-century warming to less than 1.54 °C, occurs in 50% of our simulations in a policy scenario without net negative emissions or excessive stringency in any policy domain. We evaluate two mitigation scenarios, with 200 gigatonnes of carbon and 307 gigatonnes of carbon post-2017 emissions respectively, quantifying the spatio-temporal variability of warming, precipitation, ocean acidification and marine productivity. Under rapid decarbonization decadal variability dominates the mean response in critical regions, with significant implications for decision-making, demanding impact methodologies that address non-linear spatio-temporal responses. Ignoring carbon-cycle feedback uncertainties (which can explain 47% of peak warming uncertainty) becomes unreasonable under strong mitigation conditions. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ocean acidification White Rose Research Online (Universities of Leeds, Sheffield & York) Nature Climate Change 8 7 609 613 |
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White Rose Research Online (Universities of Leeds, Sheffield & York) |
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English |
description |
The Paris Agreement aims to address the gap between existing climate policies and policies consistent with “holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 C”. The feasibility of meeting the target has been questioned both in terms of the possible requirement for negative emissions and ongoing debate on the sensitivity of the climate–carbon-cycle system. Using a sequence of ensembles of a fully dynamic three-dimensional climate–carbon-cycle model, forced by emissions from an integrated assessment model of regional-level climate policy, economy, and technological transformation, we show that a reasonable interpretation of the Paris Agreement is still technically achievable. Specifically, limiting peak (decadal) warming to less than 1.7 °C, or end-of-century warming to less than 1.54 °C, occurs in 50% of our simulations in a policy scenario without net negative emissions or excessive stringency in any policy domain. We evaluate two mitigation scenarios, with 200 gigatonnes of carbon and 307 gigatonnes of carbon post-2017 emissions respectively, quantifying the spatio-temporal variability of warming, precipitation, ocean acidification and marine productivity. Under rapid decarbonization decadal variability dominates the mean response in critical regions, with significant implications for decision-making, demanding impact methodologies that address non-linear spatio-temporal responses. Ignoring carbon-cycle feedback uncertainties (which can explain 47% of peak warming uncertainty) becomes unreasonable under strong mitigation conditions. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Holden, P. Edwards, N.R. Ridgewell, A. Wilkinson, R.D. Fraedrich, K. Lunkeit, F. Pollitt, H.E. Mercure, J.-F. Salas, P. Lam, A. Knoblock, F. Chewpreecha, U. Vinuales, J.E. |
spellingShingle |
Holden, P. Edwards, N.R. Ridgewell, A. Wilkinson, R.D. Fraedrich, K. Lunkeit, F. Pollitt, H.E. Mercure, J.-F. Salas, P. Lam, A. Knoblock, F. Chewpreecha, U. Vinuales, J.E. Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement |
author_facet |
Holden, P. Edwards, N.R. Ridgewell, A. Wilkinson, R.D. Fraedrich, K. Lunkeit, F. Pollitt, H.E. Mercure, J.-F. Salas, P. Lam, A. Knoblock, F. Chewpreecha, U. Vinuales, J.E. |
author_sort |
Holden, P. |
title |
Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement |
title_short |
Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement |
title_full |
Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement |
title_fullStr |
Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement |
title_sort |
climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the paris agreement |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/132681/ https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/132681/1/2018_Holden_PPPP_NCC_preprint.pdf |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_relation |
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/132681/1/2018_Holden_PPPP_NCC_preprint.pdf Holden, P., Edwards, N.R., Ridgewell, A. et al. (10 more authors) (2018) Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement. Nature Climate Change, 8. pp. 609-613. ISSN 1758-678X |
container_title |
Nature Climate Change |
container_volume |
8 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
609 |
op_container_end_page |
613 |
_version_ |
1799486831027290112 |