IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/21637.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Modeling Uncertainty in Climate Change: A Multi-Model Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth Gillingham
  • William D. Nordhaus
  • David Anthoff
  • Geoffrey Blanford
  • Valentina Bosetti
  • Peter Christensen
  • Haewon McJeon
  • John Reilly
  • Paul Sztorc

Abstract

The economics of climate change involves a vast array of uncertainties, complicating both the analysis and development of climate policy. This study presents the results of the first comprehensive study of uncertainty in climate change using multiple integrated assessment models. The study looks at model and parametric uncertainties for population, total factor productivity, and climate sensitivity. It estimates the pdfs of key output variables, including CO2 concentrations, temperature, damages, and the social cost of carbon (SCC). One key finding is that parametric uncertainty is more important than uncertainty in model structure. Our resulting pdfs also provide insights on tail events.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth Gillingham & William D. Nordhaus & David Anthoff & Geoffrey Blanford & Valentina Bosetti & Peter Christensen & Haewon McJeon & John Reilly & Paul Sztorc, 2015. "Modeling Uncertainty in Climate Change: A Multi-Model Comparison," NBER Working Papers 21637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21637
    Note: EEE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21637.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valentina Bosetti & Carlo Carraro & Marzio Galeotti & Emanuele Massetti & Massimo Tavoni, 2006. "WITCH. A World Induced Technical Change Hybrid Model," Working Papers 2006_46, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    2. Lutz, Wolfgang & Butz, William P. & KC, Samir (ed.), 2014. "World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198703167.
    3. Alexander Robinson & Reinhard Calov & Andrey Ganopolski, 2012. "Multistability and critical thresholds of the Greenland ice sheet," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(6), pages 429-432, June.
    4. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    6. Rytgaard, Mette, 1990. "Estimation in the Pareto Distribution," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 201-216, November.
    7. Anthoff, David & Tol, Richard S.J., 2010. "On international equity weights and national decision making on climate change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 14-20, July.
    8. Clements,Michael & Hendry,David, 1998. "Forecasting Economic Time Series," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521632423, October.
    9. William D. Nordhaus & David Popp, 1997. "What is the Value of Scientific Knowledge? An Application to Global Warming Using the PRICE Model," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 1-45.
    10. Kriegler, Elmar & Petermann, Nils & Krey, Volker & Schwanitz, Valeria Jana & Luderer, Gunnar & Ashina, Shuichi & Bosetti, Valentina & Eom, Jiyong & Kitous, Alban & Méjean, Aurélie & Paroussos, Leonida, 2015. "Diagnostic indicators for integrated assessment models of climate policy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 90(PA), pages 45-61.
    11. Edmonds, Jae & Reilly, John, 1983. "A long-term global energy- economic model of carbon dioxide release from fossil fuel use," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 74-88, April.
    12. Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Marzio Galeotti, Emanuele Massetti, Massimo Tavoni, 2006. "A World induced Technical Change Hybrid Model," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 13-38.
    13. Peck, Stephen C. & Teisberg, Thomas J., 1993. "Global warming uncertainties and the value of information: an analysis using CETA," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 71-97, March.
    14. Geoffrey Blanford & James Merrick & Richard Richels & Steven Rose, 2014. "Trade-offs between mitigation costs and temperature change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 527-541, April.
    15. David Anthoff & Richard Tol, 2013. "Erratum to: The uncertainty about the social cost of carbon: A decomposition analysis using fund," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 413-413, November.
    16. Martin L. Weitzman, 2009. "On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-19, February.
    17. Valentina Bosetti & Carlo Carraro & Emanuele Massetti & Massimo Tavoni (ed.), 2014. "Climate Change Mitigation, Technological Innovation and Adaptation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14279.
    18. Robert T. Clemen & Robert L. Winkler, 1999. "Combining Probability Distributions From Experts in Risk Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(2), pages 187-203, April.
    19. Mort Webster, 2002. "The Curious Role of "Learning" in Climate Policy: Should We Wait for More Data?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 97-119.
    20. Richard L. Revesz & Peter H. Howard & Kenneth Arrow & Lawrence H. Goulder & Robert E. Kopp & Michael A. Livermore & Michael Oppenheimer & Thomas Sterner, 2014. "Global warming: Improve economic models of climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 508(7495), pages 173-175, April.
    21. Pizer, William A., 1999. "The optimal choice of climate change policy in the presence of uncertainty," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 255-287, August.
    22. Brian C. O'Neill & Deborah Balk & Melanie Brickman & Markos Ezra, 2001. "A Guide to Global Population Projections," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 4(8), pages 203-288.
    23. Mort Webster & Andrei Sokolov & John Reilly & Chris Forest & Sergey Paltsev & Adam Schlosser & Chien Wang & David Kicklighter & Marcus Sarofim & Jerry Melillo & Ronald Prinn & Henry Jacoby, 2012. "Analysis of climate policy targets under uncertainty," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 569-583, June.
    24. David Anthoff & Richard Tol, 2013. "The uncertainty about the social cost of carbon: A decomposition analysis using fund," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 515-530, April.
    25. Edmonds Jae & Reilly John, 1983. "Global Energy and C02 to the Year 2050," The Energy Journal, , vol. 4(3), pages 21-48, July.
    26. Baker, Erin, 2005. "Uncertainty and learning in a strategic environment: global climate change," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 19-40, January.
    27. Edmonds, Jae & Reilly, John, 1983. "Global energy production and use to the year 2050," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 419-432.
    28. Roy Batchelor & Pami Dua, 1995. "Forecaster Diversity and the Benefits of Combining Forecasts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 68-75, January.
    29. Richard B. Freeman, 2010. "What Does Global Expansion of Higher Education Mean for the United States?," NBER Chapters, in: American Universities in a Global Market, pages 373-404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    2. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    3. Matthias Schmidt & Hermann Held & Elmar Kriegler & Alexander Lorenz, 2013. "Climate Policy Under Uncertain and Heterogeneous Climate Damages," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 54(1), pages 79-99, January.
    4. Nordhaus, William, 2013. "Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1069-1131, Elsevier.
    5. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Shumilov, Andrei, 2021. "Анализ Неопределенности В Интегрированных Моделях Климата И Экономики: Обзор Литературы [Uncertainty analysis in integrated assessment models of the economics of climate change: a literature survey," MPRA Paper 110171, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    8. Hjort, Ingrid, 2016. "Potential Climate Risks in Financial Markets: A Literature Overview," Memorandum 01/2016, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    9. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Janda, Karel & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Selective reporting and the social cost of carbon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 394-406.
    10. Hwang, In Chang & Reynès, Frédéric & Tol, Richard S.J., 2017. "The effect of learning on climate policy under fat-tailed risk," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-18.
    11. BRECHET, Thierry & THENIE, Julien & ZEIMES, Thibaut & ZUBER, Stéphane, 2010. "The benefits of cooperation under uncertainty: the case of climate change," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2010062, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    12. John Weyant, 2017. "Some Contributions of Integrated Assessment Models of Global Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(1), pages 115-137.
    13. De Bruin, Kelly & Kiran Krishnamurthy, Chandra, 2021. "Optimal Climate Policy with Fat-tailed Uncertainty: What the Models Can Tell Us," Papers WP697, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    14. Richard S. J. Tol & In Chang Hwang & Frédéric Reynès, 2012. "The Effect of Learning on Climate Policy under Fat-tailed Uncertainty," Working Paper Series 5312, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    15. In Chang Hwang & Richard S. J. Tol & Marjan W. Hofkes, 2019. "Active Learning and Optimal Climate Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1264, August.
    16. Peterson, Sonja, 2006. "Uncertainty and economic analysis of climate change: a survey of approaches and findings," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 3778, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    17. J. Farmer & Cameron Hepburn & Penny Mealy & Alexander Teytelboym, 2015. "A Third Wave in the Economics of Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(2), pages 329-357, October.
    18. Weyant John, 2014. "Integrated assessment of climate change: state of the literature," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 5(3), pages 377-409, December.
    19. Lint Barrage, 2019. "The Nobel Memorial Prize for William D. Nordhaus," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 884-924, July.
    20. In Chang Hwang, 2016. "Active learning and optimal climate policy," EcoMod2016 9611, EcoMod.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21637. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.