Catalogue of abrupt shifts in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate models.

ABSTRACT: Abrupt transitions of regional climate in response to the gradual rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are notoriously difficult to foresee. However, such events could be particularly challenging in view of the capacity required for society and ecosystems to adapt to them. We present, to our knowledge, the first systematic screening of the massive climate model ensemble informing the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and reveal evidence of 37 forced regional abrupt changes in the ocean, sea ice, snow cover, permafrost, and terrestrial biosphere that arise after a certain global temperature increase. Eighteen out of 37 events occur for global warming levels of less than 2°, a threshold sometimes presented as a safe limit. Although most models predict one

SUBMITTER: Drijfhout S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4629371 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature