Identification

Title

The Paris warming targets: Emissions requirements and sea level consequences

Abstract

The Paris Agreement states that, relative to pre-industrial times, the increase in global average temperature should be kept to well below 2 A degrees C and efforts should be made to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 A degrees C. Emissions scenarios consistent with these targets are derived. For an eventual 2 A degrees C warming target, this could be achieved even if CO2 emissions remained positive. For a 1.5 A degrees C target, CO2 emissions could remain positive, but only if a substantial and long-lasting temperature overshoot is accepted. In both cases, a warming overshoot of 0.2 to 0.4 A degrees C appears unavoidable. If the allowable (or unavoidable) overshoot is small, then negative emissions are almost certainly required for the 1.5 A degrees C target, peaking at negative 1.3 GtC/year. In this scenario, temperature stabilization occurs, but cumulative emissions continue to increase, contrary to a common belief regarding the relationship between temperature and cumulative emissions. Changes to the Paris Agreement to accommodate the overshoot possibility are suggested. For sea level rise, tipping points that might lead to inevitable collapse of Antarctic ice sheets or shelves might be avoided for the 2 A degrees C target (for major ice shelves) or for the 1.5 A degrees C target for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Even with the 1.5 A degrees C target, however, sea level will continue to rise at a substantial rate for centuries.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ft8ppq

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

2018-03-12T00:00:00Z

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

Copyright 2108 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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