Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are scenarios for rates and
magnitudes of climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions.
Not exact matches
Modern human -
driven forces, like
climate change and pollution, are «orders
of magnitude more destructive than what early humans were doing,» Lyons said, but even at the dawn
of human civilizations, people were certainly having major — and unprecedented — ecological impacts, she said.
In this earth system model, human belief systems and corresponding
climate governance will
drive anthropogenic GHG emissions that force the
climate system, while the
magnitude of climate change and related extreme events will influence human perception
of associated risk.
Although the primary driver
of glacial — interglacial cycles lies in the seasonal and latitudinal distribution
of incoming solar energy
driven by
changes in the geometry
of the Earth's orbit around the Sun («orbital forcing»), reconstructions and simulations together show that the full
magnitude of glacial — interglacial temperature and ice volume
changes can not be explained without accounting for
changes in atmospheric CO2 content and the associated
climate feedbacks.
-- Projected precipitation and temperature
changes imply
changes in floods, although overall there is low confidence at the global scale regarding
climate -
driven changes in
magnitude or frequency
of river - related flooding, due to limited evidence and because the causes
of regional
changes are complex.
Importantly, the
changes in cereal yield projected for the 2020s and 2080s are
driven by GHG - induced
climate change and likely do not fully capture interannual precipitation variability which can result in large yield reductions during dry periods, as the IPCC (Christensen et al., 2007) states: ``... there is less confidence in the ability
of the AOGCMs (atmosphere - ocean general circulation models) to generate interannual variability in the SSTs (sea surface temperatures)
of the type known to affect African rainfall, as evidenced by the fact that very few AOGCMs produce droughts comparable in
magnitude to the Sahel droughts
of the 1970s and 1980s.»
He says low values
of climate sensitivity will still affect global temperatures as CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere rise, but increases in temperature may be
of similar
magnitude to naturally
driven temperature cycles, a scenario that has strong implications for how we manage causes and consequences
of climate change.
Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary, EPA Administrator Pruitt has questioned whether carbon dioxide causes
climate change and the
magnitude of humans» role in
driving it.
Although it is important to reduce the remaining
climate uncertainties, such as the
magnitude of the impacts
of short - lived pollutants, it does not
change the fact that CO2 is very likely the
driving force behind the current global warming, or that if we double the amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere from pre-industrial levels, the planet will likely warm in the range
of 2 to 4.5 °C.