Contributing authors were asked to consider the level of confidence in the science for 'what is already happening' and 'what could happen in the future' for their specialist topics.
Authors were asked to mark an 'X' in the following grid to indicate the current level of confidence in the science, based on 'level of agreement / consensus' and the 'amount of evidence available' (see right for an example from the fisheries topic for 'what is already happening')
In each of the full, peer-reviewed topic submissions, a rationale is provided explaining why the authors have assigned a low, medium or high level of confidence.
It is important to note that the confidence assessments are for each topic taken as a whole rather than for the specific headlines included in the summary report card.
Each rating has an arrow to indicate whether there is an increase, decrease or no change in confidence.
Changes in the overall level of confidence since the 2007-2008 Annual Report Card are shown as arrows within the confidence bars for each topic.
Confidence may go up or down due to new data and model outputs becoming available or through changes in understanding of the science.
The majority of confidence ratings have stayed the same since 2007-2008. However, nine have gone up, whilst six have gone down.
As part of this year's submission, topic authors were asked to provide information on key knowledge gaps. Some of these knowledge gaps made it into this year's headline messages and all of the detailed topic reports include a section on knowledge gaps. MCCIP intends to build on this wealth of information from around 100 leading scientists, and independently verified by 30 specialist reviewers, to produce a stand-alone knowledge gaps report inthe near future.
