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Messaging climate change uncertainty

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 8–10 (2015)Cite this article

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Climate change is full of uncertainty and the messengers of climate science are not getting the uncertainty narrative right. To communicate uncertainty one must first understand it, and then avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report1 documents the growth in our understanding of human impacts on the Earth's climate. The inclusion of a chapter on Risk and Uncertainty testifies that large gaps in our knowledge remain. Decisions regarding mitigation and adaptation will impact the Earth we bequeath to our children's grandchildren and these decisions will be taken — or not taken — before these knowledge gaps are closed. Will our descendants praise our foresight or curse our selfishness? Much depends on how climate uncertainty is factored into the current policy debate. There are formidable pitfalls when reasoning under uncertainty, into which both the scientific community and the general population repeatedly fall. This Commentary charts a course.

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Figure 1: Performance weight/equal weight (PW/EW) ratios for 62 studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Roger M. Cooke is at Resources for the Future, 1616 P st NW, Washington DC, 20036, USA, and Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, 199 Cathedral Street, Glasgow G4 0QU, UK,

    Roger M. Cooke

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Correspondence to Roger M. Cooke.

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Cooke, R. Messaging climate change uncertainty. Nature Clim Change 5, 8–10 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2466

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