Consequences of twenty-first-century policy for multi-millennial climate and sea-level change

Peter U. Clark (), Jeremy D. Shakun, Shaun A. Marcott, Alan C. Mix, Michael Eby, Scott Kulp, Anders Levermann, Glenn A. Milne, Patrik L. Pfister, Benjamin D. Santer, Daniel P. Schrag, Susan Solomon, Thomas F. Stocker, Benjamin H. Strauss, Andrew J. Weaver, Ricarda Winkelmann, David Archer, Edouard Bard, Aaron Goldner, Kurt Lambeck, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert and Gian-Kasper Plattner
Additional contact information
Peter U. Clark: College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University
Jeremy D. Shakun: Boston College
Shaun A. Marcott: University of Wisconsin
Alan C. Mix: College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University
Michael Eby: School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria
Scott Kulp: Climate Central
Anders Levermann: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Glenn A. Milne: University of Ottawa
Patrik L. Pfister: Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern
Benjamin D. Santer: Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Daniel P. Schrag: Harvard University
Susan Solomon: Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thomas F. Stocker: Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern
Benjamin H. Strauss: Climate Central
Andrew J. Weaver: School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria
Ricarda Winkelmann: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
David Archer: University of Chicago
Edouard Bard: CEREGE, Aix-Marseille University – CNRS– IRD – College de France, Technopole de l'Arbois
Aaron Goldner: AAAS Science and Technology Fellow
Kurt Lambeck: Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert: Oxford University
Gian-Kasper Plattner: Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern

Nature Climate Change, 2016, vol. 6, issue 4, 360-369

Abstract: Abstract Most of the policy debate surrounding the actions needed to mitigate and adapt to anthropogenic climate change has been framed by observations of the past 150 years as well as climate and sea-level projections for the twenty-first century. The focus on this 250-year window, however, obscures some of the most profound problems associated with climate change. Here, we argue that the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, a period during which the overwhelming majority of human-caused carbon emissions are likely to occur, need to be placed into a long-term context that includes the past 20 millennia, when the last Ice Age ended and human civilization developed, and the next ten millennia, over which time the projected impacts of anthropogenic climate change will grow and persist. This long-term perspective illustrates that policy decisions made in the next few years to decades will have profound impacts on global climate, ecosystems and human societies — not just for this century, but for the next ten millennia and beyond.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2923

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