Abstract
Large ensemble climate modelling experiments demonstrate the large role natural variability plays in local climate on a multi-decadal timescale. Variability in local weather and climate influences individual beliefs about climate change. To the extent that support for climate mitigation policies is determined by citizens' local experiences, natural variability will strongly influence the timescale for implementation of such policies. Under a number of illustrative threshold criteria for both national and international climate action, we show that variability-driven uncertainty about local change, even in the face of a well-constrained estimate of global change, can potentially delay the time to policy implementation by decades. Because several decades of greenhouse gas emissions can have a large impact on long-term climate outcomes, there is substantial risk associated with climate policies driven by consensus among individuals who are strongly influenced by local weather conditions.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kaufmann, R. K., Kauppi, H., Mann, M. L. & Stock, J. H. Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 11790–11793 (2011).
Zaval, L., Keenan, E. A., Johnson, E. J. & Weber, E. U. How warm days increase belief in global warming. Nature Clim. Change 4, 143–147 (2014).
Howe, P. D., Markowitz, E. M., Lee, T. M., Ko, C. Y. & Leiserowitz, A. Global perceptions of local temperature change. Nature Clim. Change 3, 352–356 (2012).
Li, Y., Johnson, E. J. & Zaval, L. Local warming: Daily temperature change influences belief in global warming. Psychol. Sci. 22, 454–460 (2011).
Deryugina, T. How do people update? The effects of local weather fluctuations on beliefs about global warming. Climatic Change 118, 397–416 (2013).
Egan, P. J. & Mullin, M. Turning personal experience into political attitudes: The effect of local weather on Americans' perceptions about global warming. J. Pol. 74, 796–809 (2012).
Christiansen, B., Schmith, T. & Thejll, P. A Surrogate Ensemble Study of Climate Reconstruction Methods: Stochasticity and Robustness. J. Climate 22, 951–976 (2009).
Deser, C., Knutti, R., Solomon, S. & Phillips, A. S. Communication of the role of natural variability in future North American climate. Nature Clim. Change 2, 775–779 (2012).
Rogelj, J. et al. Copenhagen Accord pledges are paltry. Nature 464, 1126–1128 (2010).
Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychol. 5, 207–232 (1973).
Nelson, J. P. Three Mile Island and residential property values: Empirical analysis and policy implications. Land Econ. 57, 363–372 (1981).
Browne, M. J. & Hoyt, R. E. The demand for flood insurance: empirical evidence. J. Risk Uncertainty 20, 291–30 (2000).
Lindell, M. K. & Perry, R. W. Household adjustment to earthquake hazard a review of research. Environ. Behaviour 32, 461–501 (2000).
Hansen, J. L., Benson, E. D. & Hagen, D. A. Environmental hazards and residential property values: Evidence from a major pipeline event. Land Econ. 82, 529–541 (2006).
Spence, A., Poortinga, W., Butler, C. & Pidgeon, N. F. Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience. Nature Clim. Change 1, 46–49 (2011).
Bin, O. & Landry, C. E. Changes in implicit flood risk premiums: Empirical evidence from the housing market. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 65, 361–376 (2013).
Atreya, A. & Ferreira, S. Forgetting the flood: Changes in flood risk perceptions over time. Land Econ. 89, 577–596 (2013).
Kingdon, J. W. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Longman, 2003).
Solecki, W. D. & Michaels, S. Looking through the postdisaster policy window. Environ. Manag. 18, 587–595 (1994).
Brody, S. D., Zahran, S., Grover, H. & Vedlitz, A. A spatial analysis of local climate change policy in the United States: Risk, stress, and opportunity. Landscape Urban Plan. 87, 33–41 (2008).
Johnson, C. L., Tunstall, S. M. & Penning-Rowsell, E. C. Floods as catalysts for policy change: Historical lessons from England and Wales. Int. J. Water Res. Dev. 21, 561–575 (2005).
Barriopedro, D., Fischer, E. M., Luterbacher, J., Trigo, R. M. & Garciía-Herrera, R. The hot summer of 2010: Redrawing the temperature record map of Europe. Science 332, 220–224 (2011).
Deser, C., Phillips, A. S., Bourdette, V. & Teng, H. Uncertainty in climate change projections: The role of internal variability. Climate Dynam. 38, 527–546 (2012).
Wigley, T. M. L. & Raper, S. C. B. Natural variability of the climate system and detection of the greenhouse effect. Nature 344, 324–327 (1990).
Delworth, T. L. & Mann, M. E. Observed and simulated multidecadal variability in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate Dynam. 16, 661–676 (2000).
Verdon, D. C. & Franks, S. W. Long-term behaviour of ENSO: Interactions with the PDO over the past 400 years inferred from paleoclimate records. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L06712 (2006).
Ahmed, M. et al. Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia. Nature Geosci. 6, 339–346 (2013).
Nordhaus, W. Geography and macroeconomics: New data and new findings. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 103, 3510–3517 (2006).
Mahlstein, I., Knutti, R., Solomon, S. & Portmann, R. W. Early onset of significant local warming in low latitude countries. Environ. Res. Lett. 6, 034009 (2011).
Finnemore, M. & Sikkink, K. International norm dynamics and political change. Int. Org. 52, 887–917 (1998).
Dobbin, F., Simmons, B. & Garrett, G. The global diffusion of public policies: Social construction, coercion, competition, or learning? Annu. Rev. Soc. 33, 449–472 (2007).
Tolbert, P. S. & Zucker, L. G. Institutional sources of change in the formal structure of organizations: The diffusion of civil service reform, 1880–1935. Admin. Sci. Q. 22–39 (1983).
True, J. & Mintrom, M. Transnational networks and policy diffusion: The case of gender mainstreaming. Int. Stud. Q. 45, 27–57 (2001).
Dashwood, H. Sustainable Development Norms and CSR in the Global Mining Sector (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).
Busch, P., Jörgens, H. & Tews, K. The global diffusion of regulatory instruments: the making of a new international environmental regime. Ann. Am. Acad. Pol. Soc. Sci. 598, 146–167 (2005).
Hafner-Burton, E. M. Trading human rights: How preferential trade agreements influence government repression. Int. Org. 59, 593–629 (2005).
Climate Change and Financial Instability Seen as Top Global Threats (Pew Research Center, 24 June 2013).
Poortinga, W., Spence, A., Whitmarsh, L., Capstick, S. & Pidgeon, N. F. Uncertain climate: An investigation into public scepticism about anthropogenic climate change. Glob. Environ. Change 21, 1015–1024 (2011).
Howe, P. D. & Leiserowitz, A. Who remembers a hot summer or a cold winter? The asymmetric effect of beliefs about global warming on perceptions of local climate conditions in the US. Glob. Environ. Change 23, 1488–1500 (2013).
Connor, L. H. & Higginbotham, N. “Natural cycles” in lay understandings of climate change. Glob. Environ. Change 23, 1852–1861 (2013).
Rogelj, J., McCollum, D. L., Reisinger, A., Meinshausen, M. & Riahi, K. Probabilistic cost estimates for climate change mitigation. Nature 493, 79–83 (2013).
Acknowledgements
The authors thank C. Deser for helpful discussions and C. Deser and A. Philips for assistance obtaining the CCSM large ensemble data. We thank J. Pongratz for assistance with supplementary analyses of crop yields.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Both authors contributed to the design of the study. K.L.R. conducted the data analyses. Both authors contributed to writing the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary text and figures
Supplementary Methods (PDF 5558 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ricke, K., Caldeira, K. Natural climate variability and future climate policy. Nature Clim Change 4, 333–338 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2186
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2186
This article is cited by
-
Polarisation of Climate and Environmental Attitudes in the United States, 1973-2022
npj Climate Action (2024)
-
Determinants of emissions pathways in the coupled climate–social system
Nature (2022)
-
Incorporating human behaviour into Earth system modelling
Nature Human Behaviour (2022)
-
Disentangling the influencing factors driving the cooling trend in boreal summer over Indo-Gangetic river basin, India: role of Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO)
Theoretical and Applied Climatology (2019)
-
Climate variability decreases species richness and community stability in a temperate grassland
Oecologia (2018)