Ocean acidification and its impacts: an expert survey

The oceans moderate the rate and severity of climate change by absorbing massive amounts of anthropogenic CO₂ but this results in large-scale changes in seawater chemistry, which are collectively referred to as anthropogenic ocean acidification. Despite its potentially widespread consequences, the problem of ocean acidification has been largely absent from most policy discussions of CO₂ emissions, both because the science is relatively new and because the research community has yet to deliver a clear message to decision makers regarding its impacts. Here we report the results of the first expert survey in the field of ocean acidification. Fifty-three experts, who had previously participated in an IPCC workshop, were asked to assess 22 declarative statements about ocean acidification and its consequences. We find a relatively strong consensus on most issues related to past, present and future chemical aspects of ocean acidification: non-anthropogenic ocean acidification events have occurred in the geological past, anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are the main (but not the only) mechanism generating the current ocean acidification event, and anthropogenic ocean acidification that has occurred due to historical fossil fuel emissions will be felt for centuries. Experts generally agreed that there will be impacts on biological and ecological processes and biogeochemical feedbacks but levels of agreement were lower, with more variability across responses. Levels of agreement were higher for statements regarding calcification, primary production and nitrogen fixation than for those about impacts on foodwebs. The levels of agreement for statements pertaining to socio-economic impacts, such as impacts on food security, and to more normative policy issues, were relatively low.     

IPCC AR6报告解读：未来的全球气候——基于情景的预估和近期信息

依据IPCC第六次评估报告（AR6）第一工作组报告第四章的内容,对未来全球气候的预估结果进行解读。报告对21世纪全球表面气温、降水、大尺度环流和变率模态、冰冻圈和海洋圈的可能变化进行了系统评估,并对2100年以后的气候变化做了合理估计。评估指出全球平均表面气温将在未来20年内达到或超过1.5℃,平均降水也将增加,但随季节和区域而异,同时变率将增大。大尺度环流和变率模态受内部变率影响较大。到21世纪末,北冰洋可能出现无冰期;全球海洋会继续酸化,平均海平面将持续上升,百年内上升幅度依赖不同排放情景,都在2100年后继续升高。在最新的评估中采用多种约束方法,减小了预估不确定性的范围。AR6对于低排放情景以及“小概率高增暖情节”的关注为应对气候变化提供了更多、更完整的信息。综合报告的评估结果指出,未来需要进一步减小区域,特别是季风区气候预估的不确定性,并从科学研究和模式发展两方面加强我国气候预估能力的建设。     

Ocean acidification and climate change: synergies and challenges of addressing both under the UNFCCC

Ocean acidification and climate change are linked by their common driver: CO₂. Climate change is the consequence of a range of GHG emissions, but ocean acidification on a global scale is caused solely by increased concentrations of atmospheric CO₂. Reducing CO₂ emissions is therefore the most effective way to mitigate ocean acidification. Acting to prevent further ocean acidification by reducing CO₂ emissions will also provide simultaneous benefits by alleviating future climate change. Although it is possible that reducing CO₂ emissions to a level low enough to address ocean acidification will simultaneously address climate change, the reverse is unfortunately not necessarily true. Despite the ocean's integral role in the climate system and the potentially wide-ranging impacts on marine life and humans, the problem of ocean acidification is largely absent from most policy discussions pertaining to CO₂ emissions. The linkages between ocean acidification, climate change and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are identified and possible scenarios for developing common solutions to reduce and adapt to ocean acidification and climate change are offered. Areas where the UNFCCC is currently lacking capacity to effectively tackle rising ocean acidity are also highlighted.     

Can ocean iron fertilization mitigate ocean acidification?

Ocean iron fertilization has been proposed as a method to mitigate anthropogenic climate change, and there is continued commercial interest in using iron fertilization to generate carbon credits. It has been further speculated that ocean iron fertilization could help mitigate ocean acidification. Here, using a global ocean carbon cycle model, we performed idealized ocean iron fertilization simulations to place an upper bound on the effect of iron fertilization on atmospheric CO₂ and ocean acidification. Under the IPCC A2 CO₂ emission scenario, at year 2100 the model simulates an atmospheric CO₂ concentration of 965 ppm with the mean surface ocean pH 0.44 units less than its pre-industrial value of 8.18. A globally sustained ocean iron fertilization could not diminish CO₂ concentrations below 833 ppm or reduce the mean surface ocean pH change to less than 0.38 units. This maximum of 0.06 unit mitigation in surface pH change by the end of this century is achieved at the cost of storing more anthropogenic CO₂ in the ocean interior, furthering acidifying the deep-ocean. If the amount of net carbon storage in the deep ocean by iron fertilization produces an equivalent amount of emission credits, ocean iron fertilization further acidifies the deep ocean without conferring any chemical benefit to the surface ocean.     

Assessment of changes in methane emissions from marsh ecosystems of northern Eurasia in the 21st century using regional climate model results

Changes in methane emissions into the atmosphere from terrestrial ecosystems are assessed with models for the European and Asian parts of Russia using the model unit of a methane cycle and calculations with a regional climate model. The calculations were performed for the present-day base period (1991–2000), for the middle (2041–2050), and late (2091–2100) 21st century using the SRES A2 anthropogenic emission scenario. The average emissions for the base period were equal to 8 Mt CH₄/year for the European part of Russia and 10 Mt CH₄/year for the Asian part. By the middle of the 21st century, they increased up to 11 and 13 Mt CH₄/year, and by the late 21st century, up to 14 and 17 Mt CH₄/year. These tendencies are associated with the increased warm period of the soil and dependence of the integral methane production on temperature. It is predicted that the maximum depth of freezing will lessen in the southern regions of the European and Asian parts of Russia by the late 21st century.     

Addressing sources of uncertainty in runoff projections for a data scarce catchment in the Ecuadorian Andes

Future climate projections from general circulation models (GCMs) predict an acceleration of the global hydrological cycle throughout the 21st century in response to human-induced rise in temperatures. However, projections of GCMs are too coarse in resolution to be used in local studies of climate change impacts. To cope with this problem, downscaling methods have been developed that transform climate projections into high resolution datasets to drive impact models such as rainfall-runoff models. Generally, the range of changes simulated by different GCMs is considered to be the major source of variability in the results of such studies. However, the cascade of uncertainty in runoff projections is further elongated by differences between impact models, especially where robust calibration is hampered by the scarcity of data. Here, we address the relative importance of these different sources of uncertainty in a poorly monitored headwater catchment of the Ecuadorian Andes. Therefore, we force 7 hydrological models with downscaled outputs of 8 GCMs driven by the A1B and A2 emission scenarios over the 21st century. Results indicate a likely increase in annual runoff by 2100 with a large variability between the different combinations of a climate model with a hydrological model. Differences between GCM projections introduce a gradually increasing relative uncertainty throughout the 21st century. Meanwhile, structural differences between applied hydrological models still contribute to a third of the total uncertainty in late 21st century runoff projections and differences between the two emission scenarios are marginal.     

Economic costs of ocean acidification: a look into the impacts on global shellfish production

Ocean acidification is increasingly recognized as a major global problem. Yet economic assessments of its effects are currently almost absent. Unlike most other marine organisms, mollusks, which have significant commercial value worldwide, have relatively solid scientific evidence of biological impact of acidification and allow us to make such an economic evaluation. By performing a partial-equilibrium analysis, we estimate global and regional economic costs of production loss of mollusks due to ocean acidification. Our results show that the costs for the world as a whole could be over 100 billion USD with an assumption of increasing demand of mollusks with expected income growths combined with a business-as-usual emission trend towards the year 2100. The major determinants of cost levels are the impacts on the Chinese production, which is dominant in the world, and the expected demand increase of mollusks in today’s developing countries, which include China, in accordance with their future income rise. Our results have direct implications for climate policy. Because the ocean acidifies faster than the atmosphere warms, the acidification effects on mollusks would raise the social cost of carbon more strongly than the estimated damage adds to the damage costs of climate change.     

Variation in the climatic response to SRES emissions scenarios in integrated assessment models

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) have commonly been used to understand the relationship between the economy, the earth’s climate system and climate impacts. We compare the IPCC simulations of CO₂ concentration, radiative forcing, and global mean temperature changes associated with five SRES ‘marker’ emissions scenarios with the responses of three IAMs—DICE, FUND and PAGE—to these same emission scenarios. We also compare differences in simulated temperature increase resulting from moving from a high to a low emissions scenario. These IAMs offer a range of climate outcomes, some of which are inconsistent with those of IPCC, due to differing treatments of the carbon cycle and of the temperature response to radiative forcing. In particular, in FUND temperatures up until 2100 are relatively similar for the four emissions scenarios, and temperature reductions upon switching to lower emissions scenarios are small. PAGE incorporates strong carbon cycle feedbacks, leading to higher CO₂ concentrations in the twenty-second century than other models. Such IAMs are frequently applied to determine ‘optimal’ climate policy in a cost–benefit approach. Models such as FUND which show smaller temperature responses to reducing emissions than IPCC simulations on comparable timescales will underestimate the benefits of emission reductions and hence the calculated ‘optimal’ level of investment in mitigation.     

The RCP greenhouse gas concentrations and their extensions from 1765 to 2300

We present the greenhouse gas concentrations for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and their extensions beyond 2100, the Extended Concentration Pathways (ECPs). These projections include all major anthropogenic greenhouse gases and are a result of a multi-year effort to produce new scenarios for climate change research. We combine a suite of atmospheric concentration observations and emissions estimates for greenhouse gases (GHGs) through the historical period (1750?C2005) with harmonized emissions projected by four different Integrated Assessment Models for 2005?C2100. As concentrations are somewhat dependent on the future climate itself (due to climate feedbacks in the carbon and other gas cycles), we emulate median response characteristics of models assessed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report using the reduced-complexity carbon cycle climate model MAGICC6. Projected ??best-estimate?? global-mean surface temperature increases (using inter alia a climate sensitivity of 3°C) range from 1.5°C by 2100 for the lowest of the four RCPs, called both RCP3-PD and RCP2.6, to 4.5°C for the highest one, RCP8.5, relative to pre-industrial levels. Beyond 2100, we present the ECPs that are simple extensions of the RCPs, based on the assumption of either smoothly stabilizing concentrations or constant emissions: For example, the lower RCP2.6 pathway represents a strong mitigation scenario and is extended by assuming constant emissions after 2100 (including net negative CO₂ emissions), leading to CO₂ concentrations returning to 360 ppm by 2300. We also present the GHG concentrations for one supplementary extension, which illustrates the stringent emissions implications of attempting to go back to ECP4.5 concentration levels by 2250 after emissions during the 21^st century followed the higher RCP6 scenario. Corresponding radiative forcing values are presented for the RCP and ECPs.     

Effects of solar radiation modification on the ocean carbon cycle: An earth system modeling study

Solar radiation modification (SRM, also termed as geoengineering) has been proposed as a potential option to counteract anthropogenic warming. The underlying idea of SRM is to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the atmosphere and surface, thus offsetting some amount of global warming. Here, the authors use an Earth system model to investigate the impact of SRM on the global carbon cycle and ocean biogeochemistry. The authors simulate the temporal evolution of global climate and the carbon cycle from the pre-industrial period to the end of this century under three scenarios: the RCP4.5 CO₂ emission pathway, the RCP8.5 CO₂ emission pathway, and the RCP8.5 CO₂ emission pathway with the implementation of SRM to maintain the global mean surface temperature at the level of RCP4.5. The simulations show that SRM, by altering global climate, also affects the global carbon cycle. Compared to the RCP8.5 simulation without SRM, by the year 2100, SRM reduces atmospheric CO₂ by 65 ppm mainly as a result of increased CO₂ uptake by the terrestrial biosphere. However, SRM-induced change in atmospheric CO₂ and climate has a small effect in mitigating ocean acidification. By the year 2100, relative to RCP8.5, SRM causes a decrease in surface ocean hydrogen ion concentration ([H⁺]) by 6% and attenuates the seasonal amplitude of [H⁺] by about 10%. The simulations also show that SRM has a small effect on globally integrated ocean net primary productivity relative to the high-CO₂ simulation without SRM. This study contributes to a comprehensive assessment of the effects of SRM on both the physical climate and the global carbon cycle.摘要太阳辐射干预地球工程是应对气候变化的备用应急措施. 其基本思路是通过减少到达大气和地表的太阳辐射, 从一定程度上抵消温室效应引起的全球变暖. 本研究使用地球系统模式模拟理想化太阳辐射干预方法对海洋碳循环的影响. 模拟试验中, 通过直接减少太阳辐射将RCP8.5 CO₂排放情景下的全球平均温度降低到RCP4.5情景下的温度. 模拟结果表明, 到2100年, 相对于RCP8.5情景, 减少太阳辐射通过增加陆地碳汇, 使大气CO₂浓度降低了65 ppm. 减少太阳辐射对海洋酸化影响很小. 到 2100 年, 相对于RCP8.5情景, 减少太阳辐射使海表平均氢离子浓度减少6%, pH上升0.03, 同时使海表平均氢离子浓度的季节变化振幅衰减约10%. 模拟结果还表明, 减少太阳辐射对全球海洋净初级生产力的影响较小. 本研究有助于深化我们对太阳辐射干预地球工程的气候和碳循环效应的认知和综合评估.     

RCP2.6: exploring the possibility to keep global mean temperature increase below 2��C

The RCP2.6 emission and concentration pathway is representative of the literature on mitigation scenarios aiming to limit the increase of global mean temperature to 2°C. These scenarios form the low end of the scenario literature in terms of emissions and radiative forcing. They often show negative emissions from energy use in the second half of the 21st century. The RCP2.6 scenario is shown to be technically feasible in the IMAGE integrated assessment modeling framework from a medium emission baseline scenario, assuming full participation of all countries. Cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases from 2010 to 2100 need to be reduced by 70% compared to a baseline scenario, requiring substantial changes in energy use and emissions of non-CO₂ gases. These measures (specifically the use of bio-energy and reforestation measures) also have clear consequences for global land use. Based on the RCP2.6 scenario, recommendations for further research on low emission scenarios have been formulated. These include the response of the climate system to a radiative forcing peak, the ability of society to achieve the required emission reduction rates given political and social inertia and the possibilities to further reduce emissions of non-CO₂ gases.     

The economic impact of climate change in the 20th and 21st centuries

The national version of FUND3.6 is used to backcast the impacts of climate change to the 20th century and extrapolate to the 21st century. Carbon dioxide fertilization of crops and reduced energy demand for heating are the main positive impacts. Climate change had a negative effect on water resources and, in most years, human health. Most countries benefitted from climate change until 1980, but after that the trend is negative for poor countries and positive for rich countries. The global average impact was positive in the 20th century. In the 21st century, impacts turn negative in most countries, rich and poor. Energy demand, water resources, biodiversity and sea level rise are the main negative impacts; the impacts of climate change on human health and agriculture remain positive until 2100.     

Steric sea level change in twentieth century historical climate simulation and IPCC-RCP8.5 scenario projection: A comparison of two versions of FGOALS model

To reveal the steric sea level change in 20th century historical climate simulations and future climate change projections under the IPCC’s Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario, the results of two versions of LASG/IAP’s Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model (FGOALS) are analyzed. Both models reasonably reproduce the mean dynamic sea level features, with a spatial pattern correlation coefficient of 0.97 with the observation. Characteristics of steric sea level changes in the 20th century historical climate simulations and RCP8.5 scenario projections are investigated. The results show that, in the 20th century, negative trends covered most parts of the global ocean. Under the RCP8.5 scenario, global-averaged steric sea level exhibits a pronounced rising trend throughout the 21st century and the general rising trend appears in most parts of the global ocean. The magnitude of the changes in the 21st century is much larger than that in the 20th century. By the year 2100, the global-averaged steric sea level anomaly is 18 cm and 10 cm relative to the year 1850 in the second spectral version of FGOALS (FGOALS-s2) and the second grid-point version of FGOALS (FGOALS-g2), respectively. The separate contribution of the thermosteric and halosteric components from various ocean layers is further evaluated. In the 20th century, the steric sea level changes in FGOALS-s2 (FGOALS-g2) are largely attributed to the thermosteric (halosteric) component relative to the pre-industrial control run. In contrast, in the 21st century, the thermosteric component, mainly from the upper 1000 m, dominates the steric sea level change in both models under the RCP8.5 scenario. In addition, the steric sea level change in the marginal sea of China is attributed to the thermosteric component.     

海洋的变化及其对生态系统和人类社会的影响、风险及应对

IPCC《气候变化中的海洋和冰冻圈特别报告》评估了全球和区域海洋的气候变化及其对生态系统和人类社会的影响、风险及应对措施。结果表明,近几十年来,海洋的物理和化学性质发生了明显变化,如升温、酸化、脱氧和营养盐减少等气候致灾因子（事件）的危害（险）性不断加剧（高信度）。这种变化正在影响从上层到底层的海洋生态系统和人类社会的可持续发展,如海洋初级生产力的下降、物种地理分布的变迁、渔业资源潜在渔获量的下降以及食品供应的减少（高信度）。在气候变化与非气候人为干扰因素的综合影响下,随着温室气体排放的增加（从RCP2.6到RCP8.5情景）,到21世纪末,几乎所有类型的海洋和海岸带生态系统将处于高或很高的风险水平（高信度);其中,暖水珊瑚礁生态系统尤其严重,如果全球升温1.5℃和2℃,将分别消失70%~90%和99%以上（很高信度）。然而,当前多种减缓气候变化的海洋应对措施的作用较小,有的可能带来生态危险,而许多降低气候风险的海洋适应措施的作用也很有限,特别是在RCP8.5情景下的作用更小;未来海洋生态系统的风险水平在RCP2.6情景下均低于RCP8.5情景（很高信度)。因此,这凸显了减缓气候变化尤其是减缓和适应气候变化综合治理的重要性。     

Hydrologic impacts of climate change on the Nile River Basin: implications of the 2007 IPCC scenarios

We assess the potential impacts of climate change on the hydrology and water resources of the Nile River basin using a macroscale hydrology model. Model inputs are bias corrected and spatially downscaled 21st Century simulations from 11 General Circulation Models (GCMs) and two global emissions scenarios (A2 and B1) archived from the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). While all GCMs agree with respect to the direction of 21st Century temperature changes, there is considerable variability in the magnitude, direction, and seasonality of projected precipitation changes. Our simulations show that, averaged over all 11 GCMs, the Nile River is expected to experience increase in streamflow early in the study period (2010–2039), due to generally increased precipitation. Streamflow is expected to decline during mid- (2040–2069) and late (2070–2099) century as a result of both precipitation declines and increased evaporative demand. The predicted multimodel average streamflow at High Aswan Dam (HAD) as a percentage of historical (1950–1999) annual average are 111 (114), 92 (93) and 84 (87) for A2 (B1) global emissions scenarios. Implications of these streamflow changes on the water resources of the Nile River basin were analyzed by quantifying the annual hydropower production and irrigation water release at HAD. The long-term HAD release for irrigation increases early in the century to 106 (109)% of historical, and then decreases to 87 (89) and 86 (84)% of historical in Periods II and III, respectively, for the A2 (B1) global emissions scenarios. Egypt’s hydropower production from HAD will be above the mean annual average historical value of about 10,000 GWH for the early part of 21st century, and thereafter will generally follow the streamflow trend, however with large variability among GCMs. Agricultural water supplies will be negatively impacted, especially in the second half of the century.     

Economically consistent long-term scenarios for air pollutant emissions

Pollutant emissions such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone precursors substantially influence climate. While future century-scale scenarios for these emissions have become more realistic through the inclusion of emission controls, they still potentially lack consistency between surface pollutant concentrations and regional levels of affluence. We find that the default method of scenario construction, whereby emissions factors converge to similar values in different regions, does not yield pollution concentrations consistent with historical experience. We demonstrate a methodology combining use of an integrated assessment model and a three-dimensional atmospheric chemical transport model, whereby a reference scenario is constructed by requiring consistent surface pollutant concentrations as a function of regional income over the 21st century. By adjusting air pollutant emission control parameters, we improve consistency between projected PM_2.5 and economic income among world regions through time; consistency for ozone is also improved but is more difficult to achieve because of the strong influence of upwind world regions. Reference case pollutant emissions described here were used to construct the RCP4.5 Representative Concentration Pathway climate policy scenario.     

Impact of climate and socioeconomic changes on fire carbon emissions in the future: Sustainable economic development might decrease future emissions

Fires and their associated carbon and air pollutant emissions have a broad range of environmental and societal impacts, including negative effects on human health, damage to terrestrial ecosystems, and indirect effects that promote climate change. Previous studies investigated future carbon emissions from the perspective of response to climate change and population growth, but the compound effects of other factors like economic development and land use change are not yet well known. We explored fire carbon emissions throughout the 21st century by changing five factors (meteorology, biomass, land use, population density, and gross domestic product [GDP] per capita). Compared to the historical period (2006–2015), global future fire carbon emissions decreased, mainly caused by an increase in GDP per capita, which leads to improvement in fire management and capitalized agriculture. We found that the meteorological factor has a strong individual effect under higher warming cases. Fires in boreal forests were particularly expected to increase because of an increase in fuel dryness. Our research should help climate change researchers consider fire-carbon interactions. Incorporating future spatial changes under diverse scenarios will be helpful to develop national mitigation and adaptation plans.     

Possible Climate Change Impact on River Runoff in the Different Regions of the Globe

The possibility ofassessing changes in river runofftill 2100 for a number oflarge river basins of the world for a wide range of natural conditions is investigated. The assessment is based on the SWAP (Soil Water–Atmosphere–Plants) model using meteorological data as inputs which were simulated with different general atmosphere–ocean circulation models in accordance with the RCP climate change scenarios. The possible climatic changes in annual runoff for some rivers by the end of the 21st century are compared with the natural interannual variability of river runoff caused by weather noise.     

重庆高温热浪指数和暖夜指数变化及其情景预估

利用重庆地区1951—2008年逐日气温资料分析了近58年重庆高温热浪指数(HWDI)和暖夜指数(TN90)的年际、年代际变化及其与气温各要素的关系。利用用于IPCC-AR4的全球气候模式产品,在验证其对重庆地区热浪和暖夜指数的模拟能力的基础上,筛选模拟能力较好的模式进行合理组合,并考虑模式模拟气候参考时段的偏差,预估高(A2)、中(A1B)、低(B1)3种排放情景下21世纪重庆地区热浪和暖夜指数的变化。与目前气候(1980—1999年)相比,3种情景下21世纪重庆地区热浪和暖夜指数都将呈显著增加的趋势。2011—2100年,3种不同情景下热浪指数的平均增幅为7.7～12.3天,暖夜指数的平均增幅为12.2%～16.4%。分阶段来看,3种不同排放情景下,21世纪前期(2011—2040年)热浪指数的平均增幅为3.1～4.1天,暖夜指数的平均增幅为5.7%～7.3%;中期(2041—2070年)热浪指数的平均增幅为6.9～11.3天,暖夜指数的平均增幅为12.2%～17.5%;后期(2071—2100年)热浪指数的平均增幅为12.4～21.6天,暖夜指数的平均增幅为17.1%～27.8%。     

Future Effects of Ozone on Carbon Sequestration and Climate Change Policy Using a Global Biogeochemical Model

Exposure of plants to ozone inhibits photosynthesis and therefore reduces vegetation production and carbon sequestration. The reduced carbon storage would then require further reductions in fossil fuel emissions to meet a given CO₂ concentration target, thereby increasing the cost of meeting the target. Simulations with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) for the historical period (1860–1995) show the largest damages occur in the Southeast and Midwestern regions of the United States, eastern Europe, and eastern China. The largest reductions in carbon storage for the period 1950–1995, 41%, occur in eastern Europe. Scenarios for the 21st century developed with the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) lead to even greater negative effects on carbon storage in the future. In some regions, current land carbon sinks become carbon sources, and this change leads to carbon sequestration decreases of up to 0.4 Pg C yr⁻¹ due to damage in some regional ozone hot spots. With a climate policy, failing to consider the effects of ozone damage on carbon sequestration would raise the global costs over the next century of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ equivalents at 550 ppm by 6 to 21%. Because stabilization at 550 ppm will reduce emission of other gases that cause ozone, these additional benefits are estimated to be between 5 and 25% of the cost of the climate policy. Tropospheric ozone effects on terrestrial ecosystems thus produce a surprisingly large feedback in estimating climate policy costs that, heretofore, has not been included in cost estimates.