Shutting Down the Thermohaline Circulation

Richard Tol, David Anthoff () and Francisco Estrada

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: Past climatic changes were caused by a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation. We use results from experiments with three climate models to show that the expected cooling due to a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is less in magnitude than the expected warming due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The integrated assessment model FUND and a meta-analysis of climate impacts are used to evaluate the change in human welfare. We find modest but by and large positive effects on human welfare since a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation implies decelerated warming.

Keywords: Climate change; thermohaline circulation; integrated assessment; climate impacts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics/documents/wps--85-2016.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Shutting Down the Thermohaline Circulation (2016)
Working Paper: Shutting down the thermohaline circulation (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sus:susewp:08516

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