An assessment of the foundational assumptions in high-resolution climate projections: the case of UKCP09

Frigg, Roman, Smith, Leonard A. and Stainforth, David A. (2015) An assessment of the foundational assumptions in high-resolution climate projections: the case of UKCP09. Synthese, 192 (12). pp. 3979-4008. ISSN 1573-0964

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Abstract

The United Kingdom Climate Impacts Programme’s UKCP09 project makes highresolution projections of the climate out to 2100 by post-processing the outputs of a large-scale global climate model. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the methodology used and then urge some caution. Given the acknowledged systematic, shared shortcomings in all current climate models, treating model outputs as decision relevant projections can be significantly misleading. In extrapolatory situations, such as projections of future climate change impacts, there is little reason to expect that postprocessing of model outputs can correct for the consequences of such errors. This casts doubt on our ability, today, to make trustworthy, high-resolution probabilistic projections out to the end of this century.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://link.springer.com/journal/11229
Additional Information:	© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Library of Congress subject classification:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography H Social Sciences > HA Statistics
Sets:	Departments > Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Research centres and groups > Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Departments > Statistics Research centres and groups > Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) Research centres and groups > Centre for the Analysis of Time Series (CATS)
Projects:	Managing Severe Uncertainty, FFI2012-37354
Funders:	Economics and Social Science Research Council, Munich Re, AHRC, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN)
Date Deposited:	21 Apr 2015 14:08
URL:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/61635/

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