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1 results

  • 17 - Uncertainty

  • from Part IV - Processes
  • Edited by Kari De Pryck, Université de Genève, Mike Hulme, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    A Critical Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
    Published online:
    08 December 2022
    Print publication:
    22 December 2022, pp 159-168
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  • Summary

    In IPCC reports, calibrated language is used to communicate confidence and/or agreement in claims. This language is highly specialised and has developed over time to account for diverse sources of knowledge and types of agreement. Currently, the IPCC uses two typologies for calibrated language — a qualitative confidence scale that assesses the amount of evidence, and expert agreement about that evidence; and a more quantitative scale that measures and expresses uncertainty. IPCC leadership intends for calibrated language to help make their reports scientifically clearer, although the resulting stylised language raises readability challenges. Calibrated IPCC language is also used, cynically, as a diplomatic tool during the report adoption plenaries of the Panel, as government delegates raise questions about the characterisation of climate facts. Uncertainty language in the IPCC, then, signifies both technical advancement in the characterisation of uncertainty and the challenges of communicating climate science in diverse contexts.