Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
Interpreting Ensembles of Climate Projections for Impact Studies
2026-09-09
To study the potential impacts of future changes in the earth's climate, projections of these changes are required. These are usually produced using complex computer models, and are subject to many uncertainties which are often sampled using collections (“ensembles”) of model simulations. However, the sampling in any individual ensemble is incomplete and often unrepresentative. This creates challenges for users of the projections, especially when it is important to understand the range of potential impacts that can reasonably be expected. Other challenges include the presence of systematic discrepancies between the model outputs and observations of the real climate system; and the fact that it is often infeasible to work with all members of an ensemble so that an appropriate subset must be chosen. Various approaches have been suggested for addressing each of these issues: a critical review is provided here, to allow an informed choice depending on the requirements of a given application. This article is categorized under: Climate Models and Modeling > Knowledge Generation with Models Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Representing Uncertainty