Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of SI unit prefixes
- List of chemical symbols
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the Third Edition
- 1 Global warming and climate change
- 2 The greenhouse effect
- 3 The greenhouse gases
- 4 Climates of the past
- 5 Modelling the climate
- 6 Climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond
- 7 The impacts of climate change
- 8 Why should we be concerned?
- 9 Weighing the uncertainty
- 10 A strategy for action to slow and stabilise climate change
- 11 Energy and transport for the future
- 12 The global village
- Glossary
- Index
6 - Climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of SI unit prefixes
- List of chemical symbols
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the Third Edition
- 1 Global warming and climate change
- 2 The greenhouse effect
- 3 The greenhouse gases
- 4 Climates of the past
- 5 Modelling the climate
- 6 Climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond
- 7 The impacts of climate change
- 8 Why should we be concerned?
- 9 Weighing the uncertainty
- 10 A strategy for action to slow and stabilise climate change
- 11 Energy and transport for the future
- 12 The global village
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
The last chapter showed that the most effective tool we possess for the prediction of future Climate change due to human activities is the Climate model. This chapter will describe the predictions of models for likely Climate change during the twenty-first century. It will also consider other factors that might lead to Climate change and assess their importance relative to the effect of Greenhouse gases.
Emission scenarios
A principal reason for the development of Climate models is to learn about the detail of the likely Climate change this century and beyond. Because model simulations into the future depend on assumptions regarding future anthropogenic emissions of Greenhouse gases, which in turn depend on assumptions about many factors involving human behaviour, it has been thought inappropriate and possibly misleading to call the simulations of future Climate so far ahead ‘predictions’. They are therefore generally called ‘projections’ to emphasise that what is being done is to explore likely future Climates which arise from a range of assumptions regarding human activities.
A starting point for any projections of likely Climate change into the future is a set of descriptions of likely future global emissions of Greenhouse gases. These will depend on a variety of assumptions regarding human behaviour and activities, including population, economic growth, energy use and the sources of energy generation. As was mentioned in Chapter 3, such descriptions of future emissions are called scenarios.
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- Information
- Global WarmingThe Complete Briefing, pp. 115 - 142Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004