Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement

P. B. Holden (), N. R. Edwards, A. Ridgwell, R. D. Wilkinson, K. Fraedrich, F. Lunkeit, Hector Pollitt, Jean-Francois Mercure (), P. Salas, Aileen Lam, F. Knobloch, U. Chewpreecha and J. E. Viñuales
Additional contact information
P. B. Holden: The Open University
N. R. Edwards: The Open University
A. Ridgwell: University of California
R. D. Wilkinson: University of Sheffield
K. Fraedrich: KlimaCampus
F. Lunkeit: University of Hamburg
P. Salas: University of Cambridge
F. Knobloch: University of Cambridge
U. Chewpreecha: Cambridge Econometrics Ltd
J. E. Viñuales: University of Cambridge

Nature Climate Change, 2018, vol. 8, issue 7, 609-613

Abstract: Abstract The Paris Agreement1 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 emissions2 and ongoing debate on the sensitivity of the climate–carbon-cycle system3. 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.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41558-018-0197-7

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