GEOG 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Sea Level Rise, Thermal Expansion, Thames Barrier
31 Oct 2015
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Document Summary
New representation concentration pathway scenarios (rcps) : 4 scenarios from worse to more optimistic scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. Gcm usage : predict the impacts of future climate change : useful for industry and government. Ouranos to predict impacts of climate change in qc: helps decide what policies are needed. Ex : at what level should we stabilize ghgs to avoid increase in t. above 2 c: impact attributions : to what extent is climate change responsible for extreme events. Weaknesses of gcm: costly and complex to use, simpli cations : processes still not fully understood (feedbacks, clouds not well represented, etc. ) Red = worse emissions purple = more optimistic emissions but we are actually worse than the worst projections large scale models not always useful for local scale planing. Strengths of gcm: only tool to predict the future, getting better : improved understanding of processes + downscaling techniques (more precise)
