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State-of-the-art global models underestimate impacts from climate extremes.


ABSTRACT: Global impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models underestimate the extremeness of impacts in important sectors such as agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, and heat-related human mortality, while impacts on water resources and hydropower are overestimated in some river basins; and the spread across models is often large. This has important implications for economic assessments of climate change impacts that rely on these models. It also means that societal risks from future extreme events may be greater than previously thought.

SUBMITTER: Schewe J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6397256 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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State-of-the-art global models underestimate impacts from climate extremes.

Schewe Jacob J   Gosling Simon N SN   Reyer Christopher C   Zhao Fang F   Ciais Philippe P   Elliott Joshua J   Francois Louis L   Huber Veronika V   Lotze Heike K HK   Seneviratne Sonia I SI   van Vliet Michelle T H MTH   Vautard Robert R   Wada Yoshihide Y   Breuer Lutz L   Büchner Matthias M   Carozza David A DA   Chang Jinfeng J   Coll Marta M   Deryng Delphine D   de Wit Allard A   Eddy Tyler D TD   Folberth Christian C   Frieler Katja K   Friend Andrew D AD   Gerten Dieter D   Gudmundsson Lukas L   Hanasaki Naota N   Ito Akihiko A   Khabarov Nikolay N   Kim Hyungjun H   Lawrence Peter P   Morfopoulos Catherine C   Müller Christoph C   Müller Schmied Hannes H   Orth René R   Ostberg Sebastian S   Pokhrel Yadu Y   Pugh Thomas A M TAM   Sakurai Gen G   Satoh Yusuke Y   Schmid Erwin E   Stacke Tobias T   Steenbeek Jeroen J   Steinkamp Jörg J   Tang Qiuhong Q   Tian Hanqin H   Tittensor Derek P DP   Volkholz Jan J   Wang Xuhui X   Warszawski Lila L  

Nature communications 20190301 1


Global impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models  ...[more]

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