Climate change: looking at uncertainty

By: Jim Giles

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Climate change: looking at uncertainty</h1>
<h4>By: Jim Giles</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>Global temperatures are set to rise — but no one is sure by how much. And although this warming will influence variables ranging from biodiversity to economic productivity, exactly how it will do so remains unclear.<BR><BR>Such uncertainty creates difficulties for policy-makers in making decisions based on scientific information.<BR><BR>In this article, Jim Giles reports how two US-based climate researchers are arguing that a more rigorous approach is needed to communicating scientific uncertainty, and that graphical tools should be used to illustrate the origins of such uncertainties.<BR><BR><a href="/ http://www.nature.com/login/scidev_login.taf?ref=/nature/journal/v418/n6897/full/418476a_fs.html" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to <em>Nature</em> feature article</A><BR><BR>Reference: <em>Nature</em> 418, 476 (2002)</p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/features/climate-change-looking-at-uncertainty/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/features/climate-change-looking-at-uncertainty/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Global temperatures are set to rise — but no one is sure by how much. And although this warming will influence variables ranging from biodiversity to economic productivity, exactly how it will do so remains unclear.

Such uncertainty creates difficulties for policy-makers in making decisions based on scientific information.

In this article, Jim Giles reports how two US-based climate researchers are arguing that a more rigorous approach is needed to communicating scientific uncertainty, and that graphical tools should be used to illustrate the origins of such uncertainties.

Link to Nature feature article

Reference: Nature 418, 476 (2002)