File talk:Global Warming Predictions.png

This file has been used in:   Dana Desonie (July 10, 2009). "Climate". CK-12 Flexbooks.

Edit of summary

I've edited the description for this figure. Mainly I was concerned that the previous revision gave the impression that the A2 storyline scenarios are a "business-as-usual" set of scenarios, which is not the case. My specific comments are below. Here is the previous revision:

Shows climate model predictions for global warming under the SRES A2 emissions scenario relative to global average temperatures in 2000. The A2 scenario is characterized by a politically and socially diverse world that exhibits sustained economic growth but does not address the inequities between rich and poor nations, and takes no special actions to combat global warming or environmental change issues. This world in 2100 is characterized by large population (15 billion), high total energy use, and moderate levels of fossil fuel dependency (mostly coal). The A2 scenario is the most well-studied of the SRES scenarios that assume no attempt to address global warming.

The IPCC predicts global temperature change of 1.4-5.8°C due to global warming from 1990-2100 [1]. As evidenced above (a range of 2.5°C in 2100), much of this uncertainty results from disagreement among climate models, though additional uncertainty comes from different emissions scenarios.

Paragraph 1

Shows climate model predictions for global warming under the SRES A2 emissions scenario relative to global average temperatures in 2000.

It is not clear from this whether the projections are for all the A2 scenarios or just the marker A2 scenario. This point should be made clear.

I believe it is for the marker scenario, but I'll try to check later. Dragons flight (talk) 22:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Paragraph 2

The IPCC predicts global temperature change of 1.4-5.8°C due to global warming from 1990-2100 [2]. As evidenced above (a range of 2.5°C in 2100), much of this uncertainty results from disagreement among climate models, though additional uncertainty comes from different emissions scenarios.

I think the differences in projected temperatures across different emission scenarios needs to be emphasized. The second sentence does not, in my view, adequately convey this important point. Enescot (talk) 01:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

There are two sources of uncertainty, one is the uncertainty in modeling and the other is the uncertainty in what emissions will be in the future. The point of this figure was primarily to illustrate the uncertainty associated with modeling. If you want to emphasize the uncertainty across different scenarios - which is also a reasonable goal - then you would need a figure that shows the variations between emissions scenarios, but that is not this figure. Dragons flight (talk) 22:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)r