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Title: Linking models of human behaviour and climate alters projected climate change

Abstract

Although not considered in climate models, perceived risk stemming from extreme climate events may induce behavioural changes that alter greenhouse gas emissions. Here, we link the C-ROADS climate model to a social model of behavioural change to examine how interactions between perceived risk and emissions behaviour influence projected climate change. Our coupled climate and social model resulted in a global temperature change ranging from 3.4–6.2 °C by 2100 compared with 4.9 °C for the C-ROADS model alone, and led to behavioural uncertainty that was of a similar magnitude to physical uncertainty (2.8 °C versus 3.5 °C). Model components with the largest influence on temperature were the functional form of response to extreme events, interaction of perceived behavioural control with perceived social norms, and behaviours leading to sustained emissions reductions. Lastly, our results suggest that policies emphasizing the appropriate attribution of extreme events to climate change and infrastructural mitigation may reduce climate change the most.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [2];  [7];  [1];  [8]; ORCiD logo [9]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT (United States)
  2. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  3. Rhode Island College, Providence, RI (United States)
  4. The State Univ. of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY (United States)
  5. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States)
  6. Utah State Univ., Logan, UT (United States)
  7. Climate Interactive, Belmont, MA (United States)
  8. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
  9. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1415910
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nature Climate Change
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 1758-678X
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Citation Formats

Beckage, Brian, Gross, Louis J., Lacasse, Katherine, Carr, Eric, Metcalf, Sara S., Winter, Jonathan M., Howe, Peter D., Fefferman, Nina, Franck, Travis, Zia, Asim, Kinzig, Ann, and Hoffman, Forrest M. Linking models of human behaviour and climate alters projected climate change. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1038/s41558-017-0031-7.
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Beckage, Brian, Gross, Louis J., Lacasse, Katherine, Carr, Eric, Metcalf, Sara S., Winter, Jonathan M., Howe, Peter D., Fefferman, Nina, Franck, Travis, Zia, Asim, Kinzig, Ann, & Hoffman, Forrest M. Linking models of human behaviour and climate alters projected climate change. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0031-7
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Beckage, Brian, Gross, Louis J., Lacasse, Katherine, Carr, Eric, Metcalf, Sara S., Winter, Jonathan M., Howe, Peter D., Fefferman, Nina, Franck, Travis, Zia, Asim, Kinzig, Ann, and Hoffman, Forrest M. Mon . "Linking models of human behaviour and climate alters projected climate change". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0031-7. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1415910.
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@article{osti_1415910,
title = {Linking models of human behaviour and climate alters projected climate change},
author = {Beckage, Brian and Gross, Louis J. and Lacasse, Katherine and Carr, Eric and Metcalf, Sara S. and Winter, Jonathan M. and Howe, Peter D. and Fefferman, Nina and Franck, Travis and Zia, Asim and Kinzig, Ann and Hoffman, Forrest M.},
abstractNote = {Although not considered in climate models, perceived risk stemming from extreme climate events may induce behavioural changes that alter greenhouse gas emissions. Here, we link the C-ROADS climate model to a social model of behavioural change to examine how interactions between perceived risk and emissions behaviour influence projected climate change. Our coupled climate and social model resulted in a global temperature change ranging from 3.4–6.2 °C by 2100 compared with 4.9 °C for the C-ROADS model alone, and led to behavioural uncertainty that was of a similar magnitude to physical uncertainty (2.8 °C versus 3.5 °C). Model components with the largest influence on temperature were the functional form of response to extreme events, interaction of perceived behavioural control with perceived social norms, and behaviours leading to sustained emissions reductions. Lastly, our results suggest that policies emphasizing the appropriate attribution of extreme events to climate change and infrastructural mitigation may reduce climate change the most.},
doi = {10.1038/s41558-017-0031-7},
journal = {Nature Climate Change},
number = 1,
volume = 8,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {1}
}
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Journal Article:
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0031-7
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Cited by: 11 works
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Figures / Tables:

Fig. 1 Fig. 1: | Conceptual model. Linkages between temperature, extreme events, perceived risk, social components and GHG emissions in the CSM. Average global temperature is calculated from the GHG concentration using the carbon cycle model of C-ROADS.
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