Unknown

Dataset Information

0

Inflated Uncertainty in Multimodel-Based Regional Climate Projections.


ABSTRACT: Multimodel ensembles are widely analyzed to estimate the range of future regional climate change projections. For an ensemble of climate models, the result is often portrayed by showing maps of the geographical distribution of the multimodel mean results and associated uncertainties represented by model spread at the grid point scale. Here we use a set of CMIP5 models to show that presenting statistics this way results in an overestimation of the projected range leading to physically implausible patterns of change on global but also on regional scales. We point out that similar inconsistencies occur in impact analyses relying on multimodel information extracted using statistics at the regional scale, for example, when a subset of CMIP models is selected to represent regional model spread. Consequently, the risk of unwanted impacts may be overestimated at larger scales as climate change impacts will never be realized as the worst (or best) case everywhere.

SUBMITTER: Madsen MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5784406 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

altmetric image

Publications

Inflated Uncertainty in Multimodel-Based Regional Climate Projections.

Madsen Marianne Sloth MS   Langen Peter L PL   Boberg Fredrik F   Christensen Jens Hesselbjerg JH  

Geophysical research letters 20171123 22


Multimodel ensembles are widely analyzed to estimate the range of future regional climate change projections. For an ensemble of climate models, the result is often portrayed by showing maps of the geographical distribution of the multimodel mean results and associated uncertainties represented by model spread at the grid point scale. Here we use a set of CMIP5 models to show that presenting statistics this way results in an overestimation of the projected range leading to physically implausible  ...[more]

Similar Datasets

| S-EPMC7539979 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC3921638 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5422548 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4773150 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5881250 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC3948304 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7376739 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC3816756 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4988608 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC9555774 | biostudies-literature