Warming World: Impacts by Degree

The Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, part of the National Academies' Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS), has released booklet that helps quantify the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Based on a report produced by DELS in 2010, the booklet is geared to help policymakers, students, and the general public better understand the original report's important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts.

According to the committee that produced the report, Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level.

DELS, like TRB, is a division of the National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.