Why Scientists Retired the Dire Climate Scenario Used for Over a Decade

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By Brad Plumer and Eric Niiler, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: ...an international team of researchers published a major revision of the emissions scenarios used to study global warming. When scientists try to model how hot Earth could get this century, they typically look at a range of possibilities for how much planet-warming pollution humans might pump into the atmosphere. ...In this latest update, the researchers abandoned a dire — and often criticized — high-emissions scenario known as RCP8.5 that has been prominently cited in thousands of climate studies over the past decade. The authors said the scenario was now “implausible” given recent energy trends. ...The majority of climate scientists still say global warming is a serious problem, and that even more plausible, medium-emissions scenarios can carry grave dangers. But the new paper has raised questions about whether some of the risks of climate change have been poorly communicated or overstated in years past and how best to think about those risks going forward.... 

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