The Limits of Consensus

The establishment of consensus by the IPCC is no longer as critical to governments as a full exploration of uncertainty. The emphasis on consensus in IPCC reports has put the spotlight on expected outcomes, which then become anchored via numerical estimates in the minds of policy-makers. With the general credibility of the science of climate change established, it is now equally important that policy-makers understand the more extreme possibilities that consensus may exclude or downplay.

© 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science