An Introduction to Current Climate Projections and Their Use in Climate Impacts Research

Abstract

Using climate projections to evaluate future climate impacts and their associated risks requires a background knowledge of the nature of climate change, use of climate models to develop future projections, and knowledge of how to address climate scenario uncertainty. This chapter provides an overview of climate and climate change, some of the foundational climate science that underlies current climate change assessments, and a brief introduction to climate models and climate scenario uncertainty. Global projections of temperature and precipitation changes from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) and a brief comparison to the prior assessment (AR5) are provided. The main sources of uncertainty in these projections include climate variability, climate model differences and treatment of scientific knowledge gaps, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. When projections are downscaled to local resolution, downscaling is an additional source of uncertainty. These uncertainties can be incorporated in assessments of climate impacts by choosing a range of scenarios that directly address the sources of uncertainty. Evaluating the likelihood of a given climate impact on animal health or management strategies requires consideration of the main sources of climate projection uncertainties. Adaptation requires consideration of global-to-regional contexts of climate changes and impacts, but also adaptive capacity.