Identification

Title

The potential for structural errors in emergent constraints

Abstract

Studies of emergent constraints have frequently proposed that a single metric can constrain future responses of the Earth system to anthropogenic emissions. Here, we illustrate that strong relationships between observables and future climate across an ensemble can arise from common structural model assumptions with few degrees of freedom. Such cases have the potential to produce strong yet overconfident constraints when processes are represented in a common, oversimplified fashion throughout the ensemble. We consider these issues in the context of a collection of published constraints and argue that although emergent constraints are potentially powerful tools for understanding ensemble response variation and relevant observables, their naive application to reduce uncertainties in unknown climate responses could lead to bias and overconfidence in constrained projections. The prevalence of this thinking has led to literature in which statements are made on the probability bounds of key climate variables that were confident yet inconsistent between studies. Together with statistical robustness and a mechanism, assessments of climate responses must include multiple lines of evidence to identify biases that can arise from shared, oversimplified modelling assumptions that impact both present and future climate simulations in order to mitigate against the influence of shared structural biases.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d73r0x9v

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-08-23T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact