Publication Date:
2015-08-29
Description:
International climate mitigation efforts are focused on limiting increase in global mean temperature, which has been shown to be proportional to cumulative CO 2 emissions. However, the ability of natural and human systems to successfully adapt to climatic changes depends on both the magnitude and rate of change, the latter of which will depend on how quickly a given level of cumulative emissions occurs. We show that cumulative CO 2 emissions of 4620 Gt CO 2 (reached in 2100 in RCP4.5 and 2057 in RCP8.5) produce globally averaged warming rates that are nearly twice as fast in RCP8.5 than RCP4.5 (0.34 ± 0.08 °C per decade versus 0.19 ± 0.05 °C per decade, respectively). Similarly, the globally averaged velocity of climate change calculated according to the ‘nearest equivalent climate’ is greater by a factor of ∼2 in RCP8.5 than in RCP4.5 (2.51 ± 0.67 km yr −1 versus 1.32 ± 0.39 km yr −1 , respectively), despite equivalent cumulative ...
Print ISSN:
1748-9318
Electronic ISSN:
1748-9326
Topics:
Biology
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Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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