In last week’s blog, I started demonstrating the power of AI to predict aspects of the future by having it analyze the future of climate change. My focus was not to demonstrate the benefits or the accuracy of these predictions. To be honest, with my background in the topic, I did not find that the predictions added anything to my knowledge base. Nor would they help teachers that teach the topic. However, the predictions might help students and people with a minimal background in the subject. The AI that I used was Gemini, which Google has now adopted for all inquiries. Two main aspects illustrate the predictions: the top picture and the text that follows. My original question was “Can you predict the future of global climate change and explain how you arrived at these predictions?” The picture in last week’s blog came out on the first try; the text needed some feedback. My prompt from last week’s blog did not ask to emphasize humanity’s role in the process, bu it came up anyway because of AI’s exposure to IPCC training. The noticeable result in last week’s blog was that the opening picture was OK on the first trial, but the text eliminated most traces of quantitative predictions in the form of numbers to focus instead on trends. This blog is using a different AI, Copilot, which is offered as part of the Microsoft system. A short description of the two AI systems is given below (through Gemini):
Gemini is Google’s multimodal AI assistant, designed for deep web research, creative ideation, and processing vast amounts of data. Copilot is Microsoft’s productivity-focused AI, built natively into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem to streamline writing, analyze spreadsheets, and summarize meetings
In this blog, I explicitly asked Copilot to include human contributions to climate change. Unlike the previous blog, the top picture needed some fine tuning to limit the amount of information included. However, the text needed none. I started the discussion with the following question:
Can you predict the future of global climate change and explain how you arrived at these predictions? Please include human contributions.
Big picture: where the climate is headed
Global climate change will continue to intensify throughout this century. The exact amount depends on how quickly humanity cuts greenhouse gas emissions, but some patterns are very robust:
- Global temperature: Under all scenarios, global surface temperature keeps rising at least until mid‑century. Without deep emission cuts, warming is likely to exceed and then above pre‑industrial levels this century.
- Extremes and weather: More frequent and intense heatwaves, heavy rainfall, droughts in some regions, and a higher proportion of intense tropical cyclones are expected as warming increases.
- Ice, oceans, and sea level: Continued warming drives loss of Arctic sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets, long‑term sea‑level rise, and more marine heatwaves and ocean acidification. Many of these changes are irreversible for centuries to millennia.
- Water cycle: The global water cycle becomes more intense, stronger monsoons, more severe wet and dry events, and greater variability in rainfall.
Human contribution: how much is “us”?
The scientific consensus is blunt:
- Human activities have “unequivocally” caused global warming. Burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes have raised greenhouse gas concentrations and pushed global temperature to about above 1850–1900 levels (2011–2020 average).
- Anthropogenic forcing dominates recent changes. When scientists run climate models with human emissions, they reproduce the observed warming; without human emissions, the models show little warming. This is a key attribution test.
- Extremes already show our fingerprint. Many heatwaves, heavy rainfall events, and droughts now have a clear human‑caused component—meaning they are more likely, more intense, or both because of our emissions.
In short: the main driver of current and near‑future climate change is human greenhouse gas emissions, not natural variability or solar changes.
How scientists make these predictions
- Climate models and scenarios
- Climate models: Complex computer models simulate the atmosphere, oceans, ice, and land. They are tested against past climate and observations to ensure they can reproduce known patterns and trends.
- Emissions scenarios (e.g., SSPs): Scientists feed different futures into these models—high‑emissions, medium, and strong‑mitigation pathways. Each scenario reflects assumptions about energy use, land use, population, and policy.
- Ensembles: Many models are run together to form an “ensemble,” giving a range of possible outcomes and a sense of uncertainty rather than a single number.
- Physical understanding
- Greenhouse effect: We know from physics that increasing CO , methane, and other gases traps more heat, raising global temperature.
- Climate sensitivity: The IPCC’s best estimate is that doubling CO leads to about of warming, with a narrowed uncertainty range compared to earlier reports.
- Attribution methods
- Detection and attribution studies: Researchers compare observed trends with model simulations that include and exclude human influences, using statistical methods to quantify how much of a change is due to us versus natural variability.
What the future looks like under different human choices
- High‑emissions path (little mitigation): Warming could reach well above and potentially or more by 2100, with severe impacts on ecosystems, food systems, health, and infrastructure, plus large and continuing sea‑level rise.
- Intermediate path (current policies / NDCs): Current national pledges make it likely that will be exceeded and harder to keep warming below unless policies are strengthened significantly and quickly.
- Strong‑mitigation path (rapid deep cuts): Rapid, sustained reductions in CO and other greenhouse gases could still limit warming close to , reduce the risk of the most extreme outcomes, and slow long‑term sea‑level rise—though some changes already locked in will continue.
Bringing it together
Direct answer: The future of global climate change is largely determined by human decisions about emissions in the next few decades. Physics, observations, and models all point to continued warming, more extremes, and long‑lasting changes to oceans and ice, with human greenhouse gases as the dominant cause.
If you’d like, I can map this into a more explicit “Venn diagram” of natural variability vs. human drivers vs. future impacts to match the diagram you asked for earlier.
I followed with one more question:
Can you quantify the predictions and the scenarios?
Here’s a quantified look at the future of global climate change based on the latest IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) and related scientific literature.
🌡️ Global Temperature Projections
| Scenario (SSP Pathway) | Description | Projected Warming by 2100 (°C above 1850–1900) | Probability of Exceeding 1.5°C |
| SSP1‑1.9 | Very strong mitigation (net‑zero by ~2050) | 1.4°C (1.0–1.8°C) | ~50% |
| SSP1‑2.6 | Moderate mitigation | 1.8°C (1.3–2.4°C) | >90% |
| SSP2‑4.5 | Current policies / intermediate | 2.7°C (2.1–3.5°C) | >99% |
| SSP3‑7.0 | High emissions, regional rivalry | 3.6°C (2.8–4.6°C) | >99% |
| SSP5‑8.5 | Fossil‑fuel intensive growth | 4.4°C (3.3–5.7°C) | >99% |
Inference: Even under moderate mitigation, the world is likely to exceed 1.5°C around 2035–2040, with 2°C reached before 2060 unless emissions fall sharply.
🌊 Sea‑Level Rise
| Scenario | Global Mean Sea‑Level Rise by 2100 | Long‑term Commitment (2300) |
| SSP1‑1.9 | 0.32–0.62 m | ~0.5–1.0 m |
| SSP2‑4.5 | 0.44–0.76 m | ~1.0–2.0 m |
| SSP5‑8.5 | 0.63–1.01 m | ~2.0–5.0 m |
Drivers: Thermal expansion, glacier melt, and ice‑sheet loss (especially Greenland and West Antarctica).
🔥 Extreme Events
- Heatwaves: Frequency projected to double or triple by mid‑century under SSP2‑4.5.
- Heavy precipitation: Increase of 10–30% intensity in many mid‑latitude and tropical regions.
- Droughts: More severe in subtropical zones (Mediterranean, southwestern U.S., southern Africa).
- Tropical cyclones: Fewer overall, but stronger and more rainfall‑intense.
🌍 Human Contribution Quantified
- Anthropogenic greenhouse gases account for >90% of observed warming since 1850.
- CO₂ concentration: ~420 ppm (2026), up from 280 ppm pre‑industrial.
- Radiative forcing: Human activities add roughly +2.7 W/m² net forcing to Earth’s energy balance.
- Attribution studies: Human influence explains ~1.07°C of the 1°C observed warming (natural factors <0.1°C).
⚙️ How These Numbers Are Derived
- Model ensembles (CMIP6): Dozens of global climate models simulate physical processes under standardized scenarios.
- Observational constraints: Satellite and surface data calibrate model sensitivity.
- Probabilistic projections: Statistical methods combine model outputs to yield ranges (e.g., 5th–95th percentile).
- Attribution analysis: Compare simulations with and without human emissions to isolate anthropogenic effects.
🧭 Interpretation
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Near‑term (2026–2040): Warming locked in at ~1.5°C regardless of scenario.
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Mid‑century (2040–2060): Divergence begins—strong mitigation stabilizes, high‑emission accelerates.
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End‑century (2100): Range 4–4.4°C, depending on human choices.
In real life, there is an ongoing discussion about anthropogenic contributions to the heatwaves that we are currently experiencing:
The record-breaking heat that’s scorching Europe day and night this month would not have been possible without climate change, according to a new study. The World Weather Attribution rapid study released Friday found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago. Millions in France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe are experiencing extreme temperatures and humidity this week associated with a heat dome. Daytime temperatures have topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in many places, while high nighttime temperatures have also made it harder to cool down and recover.
It is obvious, that on this issue, governments are not yet using AI to improve the prospects of our future.