Skip to main content

Scientific uncertainty and climate change: Part I. Uncertainty and unabated emissions

Climatic Change volume 124, pages 21–37 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

Uncertainty forms an integral part of climate science, and it is often used to argue against mitigative action. This article presents an analysis of uncertainty in climate sensitivity that is robust to a range of assumptions. We show that increasing uncertainty is necessarily associated with greater expected damages from warming, provided the function relating warming to damages is convex. This constraint is unaffected by subjective or cultural risk-perception factors, it is unlikely to be overcome by the discount rate, and it is independent of the presumed magnitude of climate sensitivity. The analysis also extends to “second-order” uncertainty; that is, situations in which experts disagree. Greater disagreement among experts increases the likelihood that the risk of exceeding a global temperature threshold is greater. Likewise, increasing uncertainty requires increasingly greater protective measures against sea level rise. This constraint derives directly from the statistical properties of extreme values. We conclude that any appeal to uncertainty compels a stronger, rather than weaker, concern about unabated warming than in the absence of uncertainty.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price includes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Notes

  1. Notwithstanding the greater speed of warming, the climate system will take longer overall to reach equilibrium if climate sensitivity is greater (Hansen et al. 1985).

References

  • Ackerman F, Heinzerling L, Massey R (2005) Applying cost-benefit to past decisions: was environmental protection ever a good idea? Adm Law Rev 57:155–192

    Google Scholar 

  • Aldred J (2009) The skeptical economist: revealing the ethics inside economics. Earthscan

  • Annan JD, Hargreaves JC (2011) On the generation and interpretation of probabilistic estimates of climate sensitivity. Clim Chang 104:423–436

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anthoff D, Tol RSJ, Yohe GW (2009) Discounting for climate change. Economics: the open access open assessment E-Journal 3

  • Bahn O, Edwards NR, Knutti R, Stocker TF (2011) Energy policies avoiding a tipping point in the climate system. Energy Policy 39:334–348. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.10.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bender FA-M, Ekman AM, Rodhe H (2010) Response to the eruption of mount pinatubo in relation to climate sensitivity in the CMIP3 models. Clim Dyn 35:875–886

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brewster JF, Graham MR, Mutch AC (2005) Convexity, Jensen’s inequality and benefits of noisy mechanical ventilation. J R Soc Interface 2:393–396

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cox PM, Betts RA, Collins M, Harris PP, Huntingford C, Jones CD (2004) Amazonian forest dieback under climate-carbon cycle projections for the 21st century. Theor Appl Climatol 78:137–156

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feintuck M (2005) Precautionary maybe, but what’s the principle? The precautionary principle, the regulation of risk, and the public domain. J Law Soc 32:371–398. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6478.2005.00329.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freudenburg WR, Gramling R, Davidson DJ (2008) Scientific certainty argumentation methods (SCAMs): science and the politics of doubt. Sociol Inq 78:2–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freudenburg WR, Muselli V (2013) Reexamining climate change debates: scientific disagreement or scientific certainty argumentation methods (SCAMs)? Am Behav Sci 57:777–795. doi:10.1177/0002764212458274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funtowicz SO, Ravetz JR (1994) The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science. Ecol Econ 10:197–207

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gardiner S (2006) A core precautionary principle. J Political Philos 14:33–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garnaut R (2011) The Garnaut review 2011: Australia in the global response to climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen J, Russell G, Lacis A, Fung I, Rind D, Stone P (1985) Climate response times: dependence on climate sensitivity and ocean mixing. Science 229:857–859

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartman R (1972) The effects of price and cost uncertainty on investment. J Econ Theory 5:258–266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hegerl GC, Crowley TJ, Hyde WT, Frame DJ (2006) Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries. Nature 440:1029–1032

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes J, Lowe J, Wolff E, Srokosz M (2011) Rapid climate change: lessons from the recent geological past. Glob Planet Chang 79:157–162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunter J (2012) A simple technique for estimating an allowance for uncertain sea-level rise. Clim Chang 113:239–252. doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0332-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2005) Guidance notes for lead authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on addressing uncertainties. (Technical Report)

  • Jensen JLWV (1906) Sur les fonctions convexes et les inégalités entre les valeurs moyennes. Acta Mathematica 30:175–193

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • John S (2010) In defence of bad science and irrational policies: an alternative account of the precautionary principle. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 13:3–18. doi:10.1007/s10677-009-9169-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahan DM, Slovic P, Braman D, Gastil J (2006) Laws of fear: beyond the precautionary principle. Harv Law Rev 119:1071–1109

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz RW, Craigmile PF, Guttorp P, Haran M, Sansto B, Stein ML (2013) Uncertainty analysis in climate change assessments. Nat Clim Change 3:769–771

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knutti R, Hegerl GC (2008) The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes. Nat Geosci 1:735–743

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewandowsky S, Oreskes N, Newell BR, Smithson M, Risbey J (2013) Uncertainty as a barrier to mitigation: historical and psychological factors. (Manuscript in preparation)

  • Lewandowsky S, Risbey JS, Smithson M, Newell BR (2014) Scientific uncertainty and climate change: part II. Uncertainty and mitigation. Clim Chang. doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1083-6

  • Li M, Vietri J, Galvani AP, Chapman GB (2010) How do people value life? Psychol Sci 21:163–167. doi:10.1177/0956797609357707

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meehl GA, Stocker TF, Collins WD, Friedlingstein P, Gaye AT, Gregory JM, Zhao Z-C (2007) Global climate projections. I. In: S. Solomon, et al. (eds) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 748–845

  • Michaels D (2008) Doubt is their product: how industry’s assault on science threatens your health. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan MG, Keith DW (1995) Subjective judgments by climate experts. Environ Sci Tech 29:468A–476A

    Google Scholar 

  • Narita D (2012) Managing uncertainties: the making of the IPCCs special report on carbon dioxide capture and storage. Public Underst Sci 21:84–100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls RJ, Marinova N, Lowe JA, Brown S, Vellinga P, De Gusmao D, Tol RSJ (2011) Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4 °C’ world in the twenty-first century. Philos Trans R Soc A 369:161–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nolt J (2011) How harmful are the average American’s greenhouse gas emissions? Ethics. Policy Environ 14:3–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Nordhaus WD (2010) Economic aspects of global warming in a post-Copenhagen environment. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:11721–11726

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nordhaus WD (2011) The economics of tail events with an application to climate change. Rev Environ Econ Policy 5:240–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Padilla LE, Vallis GK, Rowley CW (2011) Probabilistic estimates of transient climate sensitivity subject to uncertainty in forcing and natural variability. J Clim 24:5521–5537. doi:10.1175/2011JCL13989.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson M (2006) The precautionary principle is incoherent. Risk Anal 26:595–601. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00781.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raupach MR, Canadell JG, Ciais P, Friedlingstein P, Rayner PJ, Trudinger CM (2011) The relationship between peak warming and cumulative CO2 emissions, and its use to quantify vulnerabilities in the carbon-climate-human system. Tellus 63B:145–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ressurreição A, Gibbons J, Dentinho TP, Kaiser M, Santos RS, Edwards-Jones G (2011) Economic valuation of species loss in the open sea. Ecol Econ 70:729–739

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Risbey JS (2006) Some dangers of dangerous climate change. Clim Pol 6:527–536

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rive N, Myhre G (2012) Communicating the probabilities of extreme surface temperature outcomes. Atmos Clim Sci 2:538–545

    Google Scholar 

  • Roe GH, Armour KC (2011) How sensitive is climate sensitivity? Geophys Res Lett 38:L14708. doi:10.1029/2011GL047913

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roe GH, Baker MB (2007) Why is climate sensitivity so unpredictable? Science 318:629–632

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roe GH, Baker MB (2011) Comment on Another look at climate sensitivity by Zaliapin and Ghil (2010). Nonlinear Process Geophys 18:125–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross A, Matthews HD, Schmittner A, Kothavala Z (2012) Assessing the effects of ocean diffusivity and climate sensitivity on the rate of global climate change. Tellus B 64:17733

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarewitz D (2004) How science makes environmental controversies worse. Environ Sci Policy 7:385–403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider SH (2002) Can we estimate the likelihood of climatic changes at 2100? Clim Chang 52:441–451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sherwood SC, Huber M (2010) An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:9552–9555

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slovic P (1999) Trust, emotion, sex, politics, and science: surveying the risk assessment battlefield. Risk Anal 19:689–701

    Google Scholar 

  • Smallwood PD (1996) An introduction to risk sensitivity: the use of Jensen’s inequality to clarify evolutionary arguments of adaptation and constraint. Am Zool 36:392–401

    Google Scholar 

  • Smithson M (1999) Conflict aversion: preference for ambiguity vs conflict in sources and evidence. Organ Behav Hum Decis Processs 79:179–198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stern N (2007) The economics of climate change: the Stern review. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sterner T, Persson UM (2008) An even Sterner review: introducing relative prices into the discounting debate. Rev Environ Econ Policy 2:61–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tol RSJ (2009) The economic effects of climate change. J Econ Perspect 23:29–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tol RSJ (2011) The social cost of carbon. Ann Rev Res Econ 3:419–443

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomassini L, Knutti R, Plattner G-K, van Vuuren DP, Stocker TF, Howarth RB, Borsuk ME (2010) Uncertainty and risk in climate projections for the 21st century: comparing mitigation to non-intervention scenarios. Clim Chang 103:399–422. doi:10.1007/s10584.009.9763.3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van der Sluijs JP (2005) Uncertainty as a monster in the science policy interface: four coping strategies. Water Sci Tech 52(6):87–92

    Google Scholar 

  • Van den Brink HW, Können GP (2011) Estimating 10000-year return values from short time series. Intl J Clim 31:115–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vlek C (2010a) Judicious management of uncertain risks: I. Developments and criticisms of risk analysis and precautionary reasoning. J Risk Res 13:517–543

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vlek C (2010b) Judicious management of uncertain risks: II. Simple rules and more intricate models for precautionary decision-making. J Risk Res 13:545–569. doi:10.1080/13669871003629903

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walley P (1991) Statistical reasoning with imprecise probabilities. Chapman and Hall, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Webster M, Forest C, Reilly J, Babiker M, Kicklighter D, Mayer M, Wang C (2003) Uncertainty analysis of climate change and policy response. Clim Chang 61:295–320. doi:10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004564.09961.9f

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzman ML (2009) On modeling and interpreting the economics of catastrophic climate change. Rev Econ Stat 91:1–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzman ML (2010a) How should the distant future be discounted when discount rates are uncertain? Econ Lett 107:350–353

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzman ML (2010b) What is the damages function for global warming and what difference might it make? Clim Chang Econ 1:57–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzman ML (2011) Fat-tailed uncertainty in the economics of catastrophic climate change. Rev Environ Econ Policy 5:275–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winton M, Adcroft A, Griffes SM, Hallberg RW, Horowitz LW, Stouffer RJ (2013) Influence of ocean and atmosphere components on simulated climate sensitivities. J Clim 26:231–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wouter Botzen W, van den Bergh JC (2012) How sensitive is Nordhaus to Weitzman? climate policy in DICE with an alternative damage function. Econ Lett 117:372–374

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeebe RE, Zachos JC, Dickens GR (2009) Carbon dioxide forcing alone insuffcient to explain Palaeocene Eocene Thermal Maximum warming. Nat Geosci 2:576–580

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this paper was facilitated by a Discovery Grant and a Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council, and a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society, to the first author, by a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council to Ben Newell, and funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Climate Systems Science. The work was also supported by a Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council, by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, and the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship. We thank four reviewers for their incisive critique and helpful comments. Correspondence to the first author at the School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 12A Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU, United Kingdom (stephan.lewandowsky@bristol.ac.uk). Personal web page: http://www.cogsciwa.com.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia

    Stephan Lewandowsky

  2. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Stephan Lewandowsky

  3. CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    James S. Risbey

  4. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Michael Smithson

  5. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Ben R. Newell

  6. Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    John Hunter

Authors
  1. Stephan Lewandowsky
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. James S. Risbey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael Smithson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ben R. Newell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. John Hunter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephan Lewandowsky.

Additional information

Part II of this paper is published under doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1083-6.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

(PDF 251 KB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lewandowsky, S., Risbey, J.S., Smithson, M. et al. Scientific uncertainty and climate change: Part I. Uncertainty and unabated emissions. Climatic Change 124, 21–37 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1082-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1082-7

Keywords

  • Uncertainty
  • unabated emissions
  • decision making