State-of-the-art global models underestimate impacts from climate extremes

[en] Global impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models underestimate the extremeness of impacts in important sectors such as agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, and heat-related human mortality, while impacts on water resources and hydropower are overestimated in some river basins; and the spread across models is often large. This has important implications for economic assessments of climate change impacts that rely on these models. It also means that societal risks from future extreme events may be greater than previously thought. © 2019, The Author(s).

Disciplines :

Earth sciences & physical geography

Author, co-author :

Schewe, J.; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, 14473, Germany

Gosling, S. N.; School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom

Reyer, C.; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, 14473, Germany

Zhao, F.; School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China

Ciais, P.; Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91191, France

Elliott, J.; University of Chicago and ANL Computation Institute, 5735S. Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States

François, Louis ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Modélisation du climat et des cycles biogéochimiques

Huber, V.; Department of Physical, Chemical and Natural Systems, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Ctra. de Utrera 1, Sevilla, 41013, Spain

Lotze, H. K.; Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada

Seneviratne, S. I.; ETH Zurich, Land-Climate Dynamics, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland

More authors (40 more)

Language :

English

Title :

State-of-the-art global models underestimate impacts from climate extremes

Publication date :

2019

Journal title :

Nature Communications

eISSN :

2041-1723

Publisher :

Nature Publishing Group

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

1005

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 21 March 2019

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