Betting on the best case: Higher end warming is underrepresented in research

Abstract

We compare the probability of different warming rates to their mentions in IPCC reports through text mining. We find that there is a substantial mismatch between likely warming rates and research coverage. 1.5 ◦C and 2 ◦C scenarios are substantially overrepresented. More likely higher end warming scenarios of 3 ◦C and above, despite potential catastrophic impacts, are severely neglected.