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Abstract
The uncertainties associated with climate-change projections for California are unlikely to disappear any time soon, and yet important long-term decisions will be needed to accommodate those potential changes. Projection uncertainties have typically been addressed by analysis of a few scenarios, chosen based on availability or to capture the extreme cases among available projections. However, by focusing on more common projections rather than the most extreme projections (using a new resampling method), new insights into current projections emerge: (1) uncertainties associated with future greenhouse-gas emissions are comparable with the differences among climate models, so that neither source of uncertainties should be neglected or underrepresented; (2) twenty-first century temperature projections spread more, overall, than do precipitation scenarios; (3) projections of extremely wet futures for California are true outliers among current projections; and (4) current projections that are warmest tend, overall, to yield a moderately drier California, while the cooler projections yield a somewhat wetter future. The resampling approach applied in this paper also provides a natural opportunity to objectively incorporate measures of model skill and the likelihoods of various emission scenarios into future assessments.
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | From climate-change spaghetti to climate-change distributions for 21st Century California |
| Series title | San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Year Published | 2005 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | University of California |
| Contributing office(s) | California Water Science Center, San Francisco Bay-Delta, Pacific Regional Director's Office |
| Description | 15 p. |
| First page | 1 |
| Last page | 14 |
| Online Only (Y/N) | N |
| Additional Online Files (Y/N) | N |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |