Long-term probabilistic temperature projections for all locations

The climate change projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are based on scenarios for future emissions, but these are not statistically-based and do not have a full probabilistic interpretation. Raftery et al. (Nat Clim Change 7:637-641, 2017) and Liu and Raftery (Commun Earth Environ 2:1-10, 2021) developed probabilistic forecasts for global average temperature change to 2100, but these do not give forecasts for specific parts of the globe. Here we develop a method for probabilistic long-term spatial forecasts of local average annual temperature change, combining the probabilistic global method with a pattern scaling approach. This yields a probability distribution for temperature in any year and any part of the globe in the future. Out-of-sample predictive validation experiments show the method to be well calibrated. Consistent with previous studies, we find that for long-term temperature changes, high latitudes warm more than low latitudes, continents more than oceans, and the Northern Hemisphere more than the Southern Hemisphere, except for the North Atlantic. There is a 5% chance that the temperature change for the Arctic would reach 16 °C. With probability 95%, the temperature of North Africa, West Asia and most of Europe will increase by at least 2 °C. We find that natural variability is a large part of the uncertainty in early years, but this declines so that by 2100 most of the overall uncertainty comes from model uncertainty and uncertainty about future emissions.