New Potential to Reduce Uncertainty in Regional Climate Projections by Combining Physical and Socio-Economic Constraints

Combining new constraints on future socio-economic trajectories and the climate system's response to emissions can substantially reduce the projection uncertainty currently clouding regional climate adaptation decisions-more than either constraint individually. Plain Language Summary Projections of future climate change tend to have large uncertainties because we do not exactly know what humans will do and how the climate system will react to it. Here, we argue that we now know more about both of these things and that combining results from these different science disciplines can reduce uncertainties around future climate change. This will hopefully make it easier to plan adaptation to ongoing and future climate change.

Automated summary

Combining new constraints on socio-economic trajectories and climate system's response to emissions can significantly reduce projection uncertainties, providing more accurate information for regional climate adaptation decisions.