Paradigm shifts of climate science for climate solutions

Climate science has been playing a central role in shaping the global consensus on climate actions. Given the immense complexity of the Earth’s climate system, climate science has primarily concentrated on advancing scientific understanding of anthropogenic climate change while providing viable options for adaptation and mitigation policies to governments.1 For instance, climate research on the uncertainties in climate sensitivity estimation, patterns of global warming, and the attributions of global temperature and precipitation changes has yielded many significant findings on fundamental problems, resulting in substantial and robust progress in climate science. Many of these advancements are encapsulated in a series of IPCC reports,1 on which the global consensus on climate actions and solutions is based.

Some may argue that the task of climate science in climate solutions is settled, and climate science is not as crucial as before. But this is not the case. On the contrary, here I will argue that climate science per se is an indispensable part of climate solutions, and the new era of climate actions does require certain necessary paradigm shifts of climate science so that it may contribute in a more direct way to global endeavors in climate adaptation and mitigation.