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Temporal resolution and DICE

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages 526–527 (2013)Cite this article

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To the Editor

Cai et al.1 critically examined the Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE), an integrated assessment model created by William Nordhaus that is widely used to study climate change economics2. Their results show large discrepancies in the implied optimal carbon tax, apparently due to integration error as a result of the decadal time-step in the model. The validity of results derived using the standard DICE model is called into question by their analysis, including those of the United States government Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon, which partly relied on DICE.

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Figure 1: Comparison of estimated optimal carbon tax for different specifications of the DICE model.

References

  1. Cai, Y., Judd, K. L. & Lontzek, T. S. Nature Clim. Change 2, 299 (2012).

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  2. Nordhaus, W. Science 317, 201–202 (2007).

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Acknowledgements

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

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  1. National Center for Environmental Economics, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, 20460, Washington DC, USA

    Alex L. Marten & Stephen C. Newbold

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  1. Alex L. Marten
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  2. Stephen C. Newbold
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Correspondence to Alex L. Marten.

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Marten, A., Newbold, S. Temporal resolution and DICE. Nature Clim Change 3, 526–527 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1893

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