Abstract
In an effort to mitigate anthropogenic effects on the global climate system, industrialised countries are required to quantify and report, for various economic sectors, the annual emissions of greenhouse gases from their several sources and the absorption of the same in different sinks. These estimates are uncertain, and this uncertainty must be communicated effectively, if government bodies, research scientists or members of the public are to draw sound conclusions. Our interest is in communicating the uncertainty in estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture to those who might directly use the results from the inventory. We tested six methods of communication. These were: a verbal scale using the IPCC calibrated phrases such as ‘likely’ and ‘very unlikely’; probabilities that emissions are within a defined range of values; confidence intervals for the expected value; histograms; box plots; and shaded arrays that depict the probability density of the uncertain quantity. In a formal trial we used these methods to communicate uncertainty about four specific inferences about greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. Sixty four individuals who use results from the greenhouse gas inventory professionally participated in the trial, and we tested how effectively the uncertainty about these inferences was communicated by means of a questionnaire. Our results showed differences in the efficacy of the methods of communication, and interactions with the nature of the target audience. We found that, although the verbal scale was thought to be a good method of communication it did not convey enough information and was open to misinterpretation. Shaded arrays were similarly criticised for being open to misinterpretation, but proved to give the best impression of uncertainty when participants were asked to interpret results from the greenhouse gas inventory. Box plots were most favoured by our participants largely because they were particularly favoured by those who worked in research or had a stronger mathematical background. We propose a combination of methods should be used to convey uncertainty in emissions and that this combination should be tailored to the professional group.
Highlights
In an effort to mitigate anthropogenic effects on the global climate system, industrialised countries are required to make an inventory of annual emissions of greenhouse gases, and absorption of the same in various sinks, in different economic sectors and report this to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Verbal scale We used the verbal scale proposed by the IPCC (Table 1) to communicate the uncertainty in the results presented for scenarios B, C and D
The IPCC calibration is not suitable for describing the uncertainty in a given estimate of emissions, as for example we present for scenario A
Summary
In an effort to mitigate anthropogenic effects on the global climate system, industrialised countries (known as Annex I countries) are required to make an inventory of annual emissions of greenhouse gases, and absorption of the same in various sinks, in different economic sectors and report this to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A.E. Milne et al / Journal of Environmental Management 160 (2015) 139e153 uncertainties in their estimates of emissions by determining how uncertainties in the model inputs propagate through the model (Eggleston et al, 2006; Monni et al, 2007; Milne et al, 2014). Milne et al / Journal of Environmental Management 160 (2015) 139e153 uncertainties in their estimates of emissions by determining how uncertainties in the model inputs propagate through the model (Eggleston et al, 2006; Monni et al, 2007; Milne et al, 2014) To do this we treat the model inputs as random variables with distributions which are either derived from available data or are elicited from experts. We regard this distribution of outputs as the basic representation of our uncertainty about the emissions that the model predicts
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