Overconfidence in climate overshoot

Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich, Ganti, Gaurav, Lejeune, Quentin, Zhu, Biqing, Pfleiderer, Peter, Prütz, Ruben, Ciais, Philippe, Frölicher, Thomas L., Fuss, Sabine, Gasser, Thomas, Gidden, Matthew J., Kropf, Chahan M., Lacroix, Fabrice, Lamboll, Robin, Martyr, Rosanne, Maussion, Fabien, McCaughey, Jamie W., Meinshausen, Malte, Mengel, Matthias, Nicholls, Zebedee, Quilcaille, Yann, Sanderson, Benjamin, Seneviratne, Sonia I., Sillmann, Jana, Smith, Christopher J., Steinert, Norman J., Theokritoff, Emily, Warren, Rachel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0122-1599, Price, Jeff and Rogelj, Joeri (2024) Overconfidence in climate overshoot. Nature, 634 (8033). pp. 366-373. ISSN 0028-0836

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Abstract

Global emission reduction efforts continue to be insufficient to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement1. This makes the systematic exploration of so-called overshoot pathways that temporarily exceed a targeted global warming limit before drawing temperatures back down to safer levels a priority for science and policy2–5. Here we show that global and regional climate change and associated risks after an overshoot are different from a world that avoids it. We find that achieving declining global temperatures can limit long-term climate risks compared with a mere stabilization of global warming, including for sea-level rise and cryosphere changes. However, the possibility that global warming could be reversed many decades into the future might be of limited relevance for adaptation planning today. Temperature reversal could be undercut by strong Earth-system feedbacks resulting in high near-term and continuous long-term warming6,7. To hedge and protect against high-risk outcomes, we identify the geophysical need for a preventive carbon dioxide removal capacity of several hundred gigatonnes. Yet, technical, economic and sustainability considerations may limit the realization of carbon dioxide removal deployment at such scales8,9. Therefore, we cannot be confident that temperature decline after overshoot is achievable within the timescales expected today. Only rapid near-term emission reductions are effective in reducing climate risks.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability statement: The PROVIDE v.1.2 scenario data used for Fig. 2 is available at Zenodo [69 ](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6963586). The data underlying the GFDL-ESM2M and NorESM2-LM simulations included in Fig. 3 and Extended Data Figs. 5 and 6 are available at Zenodo [70] (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11091132 and https://doi.org/10.11582/2022.00012). Data required to reproduce Extended Data Figs. 7 and 8 can be found at https://esgf-data.dkrz.de/search/cmip6-dkrz/. Data required to reproduce Fig. 4 and Extended Data Figs. 3, 4, 9 and 10 are included in the code repository. Code availability statement: The analysis was performed with Python and spatial projections rely on the cartopy package. The scripts to replicate Figs. 2–5 are available at Zenodo [71] (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13208166). Funding information: The authors acknowledge support from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmes of the European Union under grant agreement no. 101003687 (PROVIDE). G.G. acknowledges support from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) under grant agreement no. 01LS2108D (CDR PoEt). T.G. also acknowledges support from the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programmes of the European Union under grant agreement nos. 773421 (Nunataryuk) and 101056939 (RESCUE). J.S. is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under Excellence Strategy of Germany—EXC 2037:CLICCS—Climate, Climatic Change, and Society—project no. 390683824, contribution to the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) of Universität Hamburg. The GFDL ESM2M simulations were conducted at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre. B.S. acknowledges support from the Research Council of Norway under grant agreement no. 334811 (TRIFECTA).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1000
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	22 Nov 2024 11:30
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2024 11:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97756
DOI:	10.1038/s41586-024-08020-9

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