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Here are 5 things to watch for in the latest climate science IPCC report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will provide guidance for policy-makers urgently facing down the current and long-term effects of the climate crisis

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

On Aug. 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its most comprehensive report on the science of climate change since 2013. It will be the first of four reports released under the IPCC’s latest assessment cycle, with subsequent reports coming in 2022.

Over the past eight years, climate scientists have improved the methods they use to measure different aspects of climate and to model (or project) what might happen in the future. They’ve also been monitoring the changes that have developed right before our eyes.

This updated assessment comes three months before world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland, to find ways to avoid the worst effects of climate change and renew their commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. It also comes amid another year of severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, flooding and storms.

The report will provide policy-makers with the best possible information regarding the physical science of climate change, which is essential for long-term planning in many sectors, from infrastructure to energy to social welfare. Here are five things to look for in the new report:

1. How sensitive is the climate to increasing carbon dioxide?

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are higher now than they have been in 800,000 years, reaching 419 parts per million (ppm) in May 2021. Average global temperature rises with each increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, but how much it rises depends on many factors.

Climate scientists use models to understand how much warming occurs when CO2 concentrations double from pre-industrial levels — from 260 ppm to 520 ppm — a concept called “climate sensitivity.” The more sensitive the climate, the faster greenhouse gas emissions must be curbed to stay below 2 C.

Equilibrium climate sensitivity from the last three major climate model intercomparisons (note: There was no ‘CMIP4’.). Climate sensitivity posits that the more sensitive the climate, the faster greenhouse gas emissions must be curbed to stay below 2 C. Data: IPCC. Graph: Alex Crawford

Older climate models estimated that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to a temperature increase of 2.1 C to 4.7 C. The latest set of climate models, called CMIP6, broadened the range to 1.8 C to 5.6 C, meaning the climate is at least as sensitive to doubling of carbon dioxide as previous models showed, but may, in fact, be even more sensitive.

The range is influenced by uncertainties in a number of climate factors, including water vapour and cloud cover, and how they will increase or decrease the effects of warming. Scientists are working to narrow the range in climate projections so that we know more about how quickly we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change and adapt to others.

2. What’s going on with clouds?

Clouds are a wild card in the climate change game. They create feedbacks to warming, meaning that warming changes cloud cover, but cloud cover can also speed up or slow down warming in different situations.

Clouds reflect about a quarter of incoming sunlight away from the Earth. So, if more warming leads to more clouds, we would expect more sunlight to be reflected, slowing warming. However, clouds also insulate the Earth, trapping the heat given off by the surface. So, increasing cloud cover (like during nighttime) could amplify warming.

Two main issues stand out: First, many factors, including cloud type, altitude and season, determine a cloud’s overall effect on warming. Second, clouds are incredibly difficult to model; how the models treat clouds is key to the range in climate sensitivity.

3. Did climate change fuel recent extreme weather?

Since the last IPCC report, our ability to assess global warming’s impact on extreme events has improved immensely. Chapter 11 of the latest report is devoted to this.

Global warming means stronger summer heat waves and more frequent tropical nights (temperatures above 20 C) are occurring in middle latitudes, like Canada and Europe.

Warmer air can hold more water. This can cause more evaporation from land, and lead to drought and wildfires. In addition, an atmosphere with more water can produce more precipitation and flooding.

Scientists projected decades ago that these changes to the water cycle would occur, but now it’s clear they’re already happening.

4. Have regional climate projections improved?

The climate models evaluated by the IPCC are global models. This is essential to capture the connections between tropics and poles or land and ocean. However, it comes at a cost — the models struggle to simulate many features smaller than 100 kilometres across, like small storms or islands.

Regional relationships can be complex: For example, extreme storms help break up summer Arctic sea ice, but reduced sea ice cover may also lead to stronger storms.

Since the last IPCC report, techniques for taking this large-scale information and refining it have shown how regional and local climate has changed and could change in the future. Other experiments target regional issues, like the impacts of Arctic sea ice loss on storms.

iceberg floating in the ocean
Melting ice sheets in Antarctica are predicted to be the largest potential source of se-level rise over the next century. Photo: L.W. / Unsplash

5. How will Antarctic ice sheets contribute to sea-level rise?

Global sea level is rising because water expands slightly when it warms up, and mountain glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are melting and adding water to the ocean.

But the largest potential source of sea-level rise over the next century is Antarctica. Ice sheet models show that melting of Antarctic ice sheets will add between 14 and 114 centimetres to sea-level rise by 2100. That is a huge range, and it all depends on whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet remains relatively stable or begins a slow but unstoppable collapse.

How the IPCC communicates this scientific debate will impact how coastal communities plan for sea-level rise. Low-lying cities, like Lagos, Nigeria, could become uninhabitable by the end of the century due to sea-level rise, especially if the higher model estimates prove most prescient.

The IPCC report will give policy-makers a better understanding of how climate change is affecting us today. This will be especially helpful for putting short-term adaptation strategies in place.

But as the science has improved, the outlook on future change has become more sobering, and the large uncertainties that remain mean substantial future work for climate scientists.

Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?
Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?

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