樱花动漫

Policy implications: redefining dangerous climate change

The group's research on actual thresholds (tipping points) in the Earth's climate system led them to re-examine how dangerous anthropogenic interference (DAI) in the climate system is defined. Most efforts to define this are usually framed in terms of global annual mean surface temperature change with 2掳C above preindustrial being the most widely accepted climate policy 'target'. Yet, no actual large-scale threshold (or 'tipping point') in the climate system (of which there are probably several) has been clearly linked to 2掳C global warming. Of those that can be indirectly linked to global temperature change, the dangerous levels are necessarily imprecise and vary, with estimates ranging from ~1掳C above preindustrial upwards. In this context, some alternative approaches to defining dangerous climate change have been offered in the paper published in WIREs Climate Change March 2011.