The Nordhaus estimates were always known for having limited utility for large changes in temperatures.
They assumed that damage to a sector wouldn’t matter much if it was currently a small part of the economy. For example, if agriculture was 2% of the US economy, and agricultural output went to zero, the result would be 2% damage to GDP. The real world doesn’t work that way though: people who are starving to death don’t work, so GDP would go to zero in that case.
The Nordhaus estimates were always known for having limited utility for large changes in temperatures.
They assumed that damage to a sector wouldn’t matter much if it was currently a small part of the economy. For example, if agriculture was 2% of the US economy, and agricultural output went to zero, the result would be 2% damage to GDP. The real world doesn’t work that way though: people who are starving to death don’t work, so GDP would go to zero in that case.