Intercomparisons of coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) and carbon cycle models are important for galvanizing our current scientific knowledge to project future climate. Interpreting such intercomparisons faces major challenges, not least because different models have been forced with different sets of forcing agents. Here, we show how an emulation approach with MAGICC6...

During the period 1979–1992, on average nearly 400 people each year were killed in the United States by excessive heat (NOAA 1995; Kilbourne 1997). In fact, in this period over the United States, excessive heat accounted for more reported deaths annually than hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and lightning combined (NOAA 1995). Furthermore, agriculture products such as wheat, rice, corn and maize ...

Changing trends in runoff and water balance under a warming atmosphere are a major subject of interest in recent climatic and hydrological research. Forest basins represent the most complex systems including critical hydrological processes. In this study, we investigate the relationship between annual total runoff (Q), precipitation (P), and mean temperature (T) using observed data collected fr...

often considered a geologic analog to the modern, rapid addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The ability to assess the sensitivity of many rate-dependent climate change impacts, based on the PETM analogy, hinges critically on the PETM warming rate. Current estimates of the PETM warming rate face considerable problems, for example, due to the nontrivial statistical challenges in account...

If implementation of proposals to engineer the climate through solar-radiation management (SRM) ever occurs, it is likely to be contingent on climate sensitivity. However, modelling studies examining the effectiveness of SRM as a strategy to offset anthropogenic climate change have used only the standard parameterizations of atmosphere–ocean general circulation models that yield climate sensiti...

The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is an organization for research, independentÊpolicy analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership inÊunderstanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and internation...