Working Paper: NBER ID: w14426
Authors: David von Below; Torsten Persson
Abstract: The paper illustrates how one may assess our comprehensive uncertainty about the various relations in the entire chain from human activity to climate change. Using a modified version of the RICE model of the global economy and climate, we perform Monte Carlo simulations, where full sets of parameters in the model's most important equations are drawn randomly from pre-specified distributions, and present results in the forms of fan charts and histograms. Our results suggest that under a Business-As-Usual scenario, the median increase of global mean temperature in 2105 relative to 1900 will be around 4.5 °C. The 99 percent confidence interval ranges from 3.0 °C to 6.9 °C. Uncertainty about socio-economic drivers of climate change lie behind a non-trivial part of this uncertainty about global warming.
Keywords: climate change; uncertainty; global economy; Monte Carlo simulations
JEL Codes: E17; O13; Q54
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| socioeconomic drivers (R23) | climate sensitivity (Q54) |
| climate sensitivity (Q54) | global mean temperature increase (Q54) |
| socioeconomic drivers (R23) | global mean temperature increase (Q54) |
| socioeconomic uncertainty (D89) | uncertainty about future temperature increases (D89) |
| human activities (Z10) | climate outcomes (Q54) |