Scenarios Table

Scenarios Table

It will be especially critical for authors to consider low-probability, high-consequence, climate futures, as these “fat tail” outcomes will often pose the greatest risks and thus must be considered in any comprehensive risk assessment. Therefore, in framing their findings, authors should not only ask themselves, “What is most likely to happen?” (e.g., with future climate, given assumptions about RCPs), but also “How bad could things get?” (e.g., as a result of uncertainty in climate sensitivity and the climate system response), and assess the degree to which the available literature addresses both.

Authors should also address how future trends in other, critical, non-climatic stressors (e.g., population growth, land use change) could interact with climate change to exacerbate or alleviate these risks. For example, rapid population growth in a coastal area already vulnerable to storm surge would significantly increase the risk from sea level rise.

To better assist the author teams in meeting these needs, and to reduce the potentially large volume of underlying scenario data products from which the authors could potentially draw, we recommend grouping the scenario products into the following three simplified storylines, which refer to ‘Lower’, ‘Higher’, and ‘Upper Bound’ departures from current baselines. [For more information see the introductory scenarios webinar.]