Regional Failures and Secondary Effect Miscalculations

Persistent Regional Model Biases

Despite advances in regional and high-resolution modeling, substantial biases persist in simulating precipitation, monsoons, and tropical cyclones. These errors limit forecast reliability for agriculture, water management, and disaster planning.

Ocean-Atmosphere Coupling and SST Feedback Errors

GCMs struggle to represent the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), ENSO drift, and sea surface temperature feedbacks. These errors distort projections for regional sea level, storm tracks, and climate anomalies.

Land-Use, Carbon Sink, and Ice-Ocean Feedback Gaps

Models often oversimplify land-use change, soil moisture, and carbon sink dynamics, missing feedbacks that drive regional climate sensitivity. Ice-ocean interactions, such as Antarctic basal melt, are underrepresented, leading to underestimated sea level rise risk.

Secondary Effects Now Driving Systemic Risk

Emerging climate risks increasingly stem from secondary effects-sink saturation, abrupt ice loss, and ecosystem collapse-rather than primary modeled variables. GCMs remain focused on first-order CO₂ forcing, missing critical feedbacks and tipping points.

Synthesis and Policy Implications

  • Large, persistent biases in regional rainfall, monsoon, and cyclone modeling limit the utility of even high-resolution forecasts.
  • Secondary risks-ice sheet instability, carbon sink collapse, and ocean circulation shifts-are becoming more impactful than primary modeled variables.
  • Policy and research must prioritize dynamic vegetation, modular models, and probabilistic stress-testing to capture emergent risks.
Research Priorities:
Dynamic vegetation and soil carbon
Modular, emergent process models
Scenario ensembles for secondary risks
Probabilistic, not deterministic, approaches
Systemic Risk Impacts:
Underpriced adaptation
False confidence in mitigation
Missed signals of non-linear shifts
Risk to insurance & credit markets
Data: IPCC AR6, CMIP6, regional model studies, empirical carbon sink and ice sheet observations (2024-2025).
Focus: systemic risk, climate modeling, and regional bias analysis[3][4].

Regional Failures and Secondary Effect Miscalculations