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Now showing 1 - 10 of 30
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    Impact of methane and black carbon mitigation on forcing and temperature: a multi-model scenario analysis
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2020) Smith, Steven J.; Chateau, Jean; Dorheim, Kalyn; Drouet, Laurent; Durand-Lasserve, Olivier; Fricko, Oliver; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Hanaoka, Tatsuya; Harmsen, Mathijs; Hilaire, Jérôme; Keramidas, Kimon; Klimont, Zbigniew; Luderer, Gunnar; Moura, Maria Cecilia P.; Riahi, Keywan; Rogelj, Joeri; Sano, Fuminori; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Wada, Kenichi
    The relatively short atmospheric lifetimes of methane (CH4) and black carbon (BC) have focused attention on the potential for reducing anthropogenic climate change by reducing Short-Lived Climate Forcer (SLCF) emissions. This paper examines radiative forcing and global mean temperature results from the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF)-30 multi-model suite of scenarios addressing CH4 and BC mitigation, the two major short-lived climate forcers. Central estimates of temperature reductions in 2040 from an idealized scenario focused on reductions in methane and black carbon emissions ranged from 0.18–0.26 Â°C across the nine participating models. Reductions in methane emissions drive 60% or more of these temperature reductions by 2040, although the methane impact also depends on auxiliary reductions that depend on the economic structure of the model. Climate model parameter uncertainty has a large impact on results, with SLCF reductions resulting in as much as 0.3–0.7 Â°C by 2040. We find that the substantial overlap between a SLCF-focused policy and a stringent and comprehensive climate policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions means that additional SLCF emission reductions result in, at most, a small additional benefit of ~ 0.1 Â°C in the 2030–2040 time frame. © 2020, Battelle Memorial Institute.
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    Taking some heat off the NDCs? The limited potential of additional short-lived climate forcers’ mitigation
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2019) Harmsen, Mathijs; Fricko, Oliver; Hilaire, Jérôme; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Drouet, Laurent; Durand-Lasserve, Olivier; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Keramidas, Kimon; Klimont, Zbigniew; Luderer, Gunnar; Aleluia Reis, Lara; Riahi, Keywan; Sano, Fuminori; Smith, Steven J.
    Several studies have shown that the greenhouse gas reduction resulting from the current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) will not be enough to meet the overall targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. It has been suggested that more ambition mitigations of short-lived climate forcer (SLCF) emissions could potentially be a way to reduce the risk of overshooting the 1.5 or 2 Â°C target in a cost-effective way. In this study, we employ eight state-of-the-art integrated assessment models (IAMs) to examine the global temperature effects of ambitious reductions of methane, black and organic carbon, and hydrofluorocarbon emissions. The SLCFs measures considered are found to add significantly to the effect of the NDCs on short-term global mean temperature (GMT) (in the year 2040: − 0.03 to − 0.15 Â°C) and on reducing the short-term rate-of-change (by − 2 to 15%), but only a small effect on reducing the maximum temperature change before 2100. This, because later in the century under assumed ambitious climate policy, SLCF mitigation is maximized, either directly or indirectly due to changes in the energy system. All three SLCF groups can contribute to achieving GMT changes. © 2019, The Author(s).
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    Harmonization of global land use change and management for the period 850–2100 (LUH2) for CMIP6
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2020) Hurtt, George C.; Chini, Louise; Sahajpal, Ritvik; Frolking, Steve; Bodirsky, Benjamin L.; Calvin, Katherine; Doelman, Jonathan C.; Fisk, Justin; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Klein Goldewijk, Kees; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Havlik, Peter; Heinimann, Andreas; Humpenöder, Florian; Jungclaus, Johan; Kaplan, Jed O.; Kennedy, Jennifer; Krisztin, Tamás; Lawrence, David; Lawrence, Peter; Ma, Lei; Mertz, Ole; Pongratz, Julia; Popp, Alexander; Poulter, Benjamin; Riahi, Keywan; Shevliakova, Elena; Stehfest, Elke; Thornton, Peter; Tubiello, Francesco N.; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Zhang, Xin
    Human land use activities have resulted in large changes to the biogeochemical and biophysical properties of the Earth's surface, with consequences for climate and other ecosystem services. In the future, land use activities are likely to expand and/or intensify further to meet growing demands for food, fiber, and energy. As part of the World Climate Research Program Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), the international community has developed the next generation of advanced Earth system models (ESMs) to estimate the combined effects of human activities (e.g., land use and fossil fuel emissions) on the carbon–climate system. A new set of historical data based on the History of the Global Environment database (HYDE), and multiple alternative scenarios of the future (2015–2100) from Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) teams, is required as input for these models. With most ESM simulations for CMIP6 now completed, it is important to document the land use patterns used by those simulations. Here we present results from the Land-Use Harmonization 2 (LUH2) project, which smoothly connects updated historical reconstructions of land use with eight new future projections in the format required for ESMs. The harmonization strategy estimates the fractional land use patterns, underlying land use transitions, key agricultural management information, and resulting secondary lands annually, while minimizing the differences between the end of the historical reconstruction and IAM initial conditions and preserving changes depicted by the IAMs in the future. The new approach builds on a similar effort from CMIP5 and is now provided at higher resolution (0.25∘×0.25∘) over a longer time domain (850–2100, with extensions to 2300) with more detail (including multiple crop and pasture types and associated management practices) using more input datasets (including Landsat remote sensing data) and updated algorithms (wood harvest and shifting cultivation); it is assessed via a new diagnostic package. The new LUH2 products contain > 50 times the information content of the datasets used in CMIP5 and are designed to enable new and improved estimates of the combined effects of land use on the global carbon–climate system.
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    The Vulnerability, Impacts, Adaptation and Climate Services Advisory Board (VIACS AB v1.0) contribution to CMIP6
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) Ruane, Alex C.; Teichmann, Claas; Arnell, Nigel W.; Carter, Timothy R.; Ebi, Kristie L.; Frieler, Katja; Goodess, Clare M.; Hewitson, Bruce; Horton, Radley; Kovats, R. Sari; Lotze, Heike K.; Mearns, Linda O.; Navarra, Antonio; Ojima, Dennis S.; Riahi, Keywan; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Themessl, Matthias; Vincent, Katharine
    This paper describes the motivation for the creation of the Vulnerability, Impacts, Adaptation and Climate Services (VIACS) Advisory Board for the Sixth Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), its initial activities, and its plans to serve as a bridge between climate change applications experts and climate modelers. The climate change application community comprises researchers and other specialists who use climate information (alongside socioeconomic and other environmental information) to analyze vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation of natural systems and society in relation to past, ongoing, and projected future climate change. Much of this activity is directed toward the co-development of information needed by decision-makers for managing projected risks. CMIP6 provides a unique opportunity to facilitate a two-way dialog between climate modelers and VIACS experts who are looking to apply CMIP6 results for a wide array of research and climate services objectives. The VIACS Advisory Board convenes leaders of major impact sectors, international programs, and climate services to solicit community feedback that increases the applications relevance of the CMIP6-Endorsed Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs). As an illustration of its potential, the VIACS community provided CMIP6 leadership with a list of prioritized climate model variables and MIP experiments of the greatest interest to the climate model applications community, indicating the applicability and societal relevance of climate model simulation outputs. The VIACS Advisory Board also recommended an impacts version of Obs4MIPs and indicated user needs for the gridding and processing of model output.
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    Global emissions pathways under different socioeconomic scenarios for use in CMIP6: a dataset of harmonized emissions trajectories through the end of the century
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2019) Gidden, Matthew J.; Riahi, Keywan; Smith, Steven J.; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Luderer, Gunnar; Kriegler, Elmar; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; van den Berg, Maarten; Feng, Leyang; Klein, David; Calvin, Katherine; Doelman, Jonathan C.; Frank, Stefan; Fricko, Oliver; Harmsen, Mathijs; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Havlik, Petr; Hilaire, Jérôme; Hoesly, Rachel; Horing, Jill; Popp, Alexander; Stehfest, Elke; Takahashi, Kiyoshi
    We present a suite of nine scenarios of future emissions trajectories of anthropogenic sources, a key deliverable of the ScenarioMIP experiment within CMIP6. Integrated assessment model results for 14 different emissions species and 13 emissions sectors are provided for each scenario with consistent transitions from the historical data used in CMIP6 to future trajectories using automated harmonization before being downscaled to provide higher emissions source spatial detail. We find that the scenarios span a wide range of end-of-century radiative forcing values, thus making this set of scenarios ideal for exploring a variety of warming pathways. The set of scenarios is bounded on the low end by a 1.9 W m−2 scenario, ideal for analyzing a world with end-of-century temperatures well below 2 ∘C, and on the high end by a 8.5 W m−2 scenario, resulting in an increase in warming of nearly 5 ∘C over pre-industrial levels. Between these two extremes, scenarios are provided such that differences between forcing outcomes provide statistically significant regional temperature outcomes to maximize their usefulness for downstream experiments within CMIP6. A wide range of scenario
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    The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) O'Neill, Brian C.; Tebaldi, Claudia; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Eyring, Veronika; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Hurtt, George; Knutti, Reto; Kriegler, Elmar; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Lowe, Jason; Meehl, Gerald A.; Moss, Richard; Riahi, Keywan; Sanderson, Benjamin M.
    Projections of future climate change play a fundamental role in improving understanding of the climate system as well as characterizing societal risks and response options. The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) is the primary activity within Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) that will provide multi-model climate projections based on alternative scenarios of future emissions and land use changes produced with integrated assessment models. In this paper, we describe ScenarioMIP's objectives, experimental design, and its relation to other activities within CMIP6. The ScenarioMIP design is one component of a larger scenario process that aims to facilitate a wide range of integrated studies across the climate science, integrated assessment modeling, and impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability communities, and will form an important part of the evidence base in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. At the same time, it will provide the basis for investigating a number of targeted science and policy questions that are especially relevant to scenario-based analysis, including the role of specific forcings such as land use and aerosols, the effect of a peak and decline in forcing, the consequences of scenarios that limit warming to below 2°C, the relative contributions to uncertainty from scenarios, climate models, and internal variability, and long-term climate system outcomes beyond the 21st century. To serve this wide range of scientific communities and address these questions, a design has been identified consisting of eight alternative 21st century scenarios plus one large initial condition ensemble and a set of long-term extensions, divided into two tiers defined by relative priority. Some of these scenarios will also provide a basis for variants planned to be run in other CMIP6-Endorsed MIPs to investigate questions related to specific forcings. Harmonized, spatially explicit emissions and land use scenarios generated with integrated assessment models will be provided to participating climate modeling groups by late 2016, with the climate model simulations run within the 2017–2018 time frame, and output from the climate model projections made available and analyses performed over the 2018–2020 period.
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    Climate extremes, land–climate feedbacks and land-use forcing at 1.5°C
    (London : The Royal Society, 2018) Seneviratne, Sonia I.; Wartenburger, Richard; Guillod, Benoit P.; Hirsch, Annette L.; Vogel, Martha M.; Brovkin, Victor; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Schaller, Nathalie; Boysen, Lena; Calvin, Katherine V.; Doelman, Jonathan; Greve, Peter; Havlik, Petr; Humpenöder, Florian; Krisztin, Tamas; Mitchell, Daniel; Popp, Alexander; Riahi, Keywan; Rogelj, Joeri; Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich; Sillmann, Jana; Stehfest, Elke
    This article investigates projected changes in temperature and water cycle extremes at 1.5°C of global warming, and highlights the role of land processes and land-use changes (LUCs) for these projections. We provide new comparisons of changes in climate at 1.5°C versus 2°C based on empirical sampling analyses of transient simulations versus simulations from the ‘Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts’ (HAPPI) multi-model experiment. The two approaches yield similar overall results regarding changes in climate extremes on land, and reveal a substantial difference in the occurrence of regional extremes at 1.5°C versus 2°C. Land processes mediated through soil moisture feedbacks and land-use forcing play a major role for projected changes in extremes at 1.5°C in most mid-latitude regions, including densely populated areas in North America, Europe and Asia. This has important implications for low-emissions scenarios derived from integrated assessment models (IAMs), which include major LUCs in ambitious mitigation pathways (e.g. associated with increased bioenergy use), but are also shown to differ in the simulated LUC patterns. Biogeophysical effects from LUCs are not considered in the development of IAM scenarios, but play an important role for projected regional changes in climate extremes, and are thus of high relevance for sustainable development pathways.
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    Taking stock of national climate policies to evaluate implementation of the Paris Agreement
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2020) Roelfsema, Mark; van Soest, Heleen L.; Harmsen, Mathijs; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Bertram, Christoph; den Elzen, Michel; Höhne, Niklas; Iacobuta, Gabriela; Krey, Volker; Kriegler, Elmar; Luderer, Gunnar; Riahi, Keywan; Ueckerdt, Falko; Després, Jacques; Drouet, Laurent; Emmerling, Johannes; Frank, Stefan; Fricko, Oliver; Gidden, Matthew; Humpenöder, Florian; Huppmann, Daniel; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Fragkiadakis, Kostas; Gi, Keii; Keramidas, Kimon; Köberle, Alexandre C.; Aleluia Reis, Lara; Rochedo, Pedro; Schaeffer, Roberto; Oshiro, Ken; Vrontisi, Zoi; Chen, Wenying; Iyer, Gokul C.; Edmonds, Jae; Kannavou, Maria; Jiang, Kejun; Mathur, Ritu; Safonov, George; Vishwanathan, Saritha Sudharmma
    Many countries have implemented national climate policies to accomplish pledged Nationally Determined Contributions and to contribute to the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2023, the global stocktake will assess the combined effort of countries. Here, based on a public policy database and a multi-model scenario analysis, we show that implementation of current policies leaves a median emission gap of 22.4 to 28.2 GtCO2eq by 2030 with the optimal pathways to implement the well below 2 °C and 1.5 °C Paris goals. If Nationally Determined Contributions would be fully implemented, this gap would be reduced by a third. Interestingly, the countries evaluated were found to not achieve their pledged contributions with implemented policies (implementation gap), or to have an ambition gap with optimal pathways towards well below 2 °C. This shows that all countries would need to accelerate the implementation of policies for renewable technologies, while efficiency improvements are especially important in emerging countries and fossil-fuel-dependent countries.
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    Impact of short-lived non-CO2 mitigation on carbon budgets for stabilizing global warming
    (Bristol : IOP Publishing, 2015) Rogelj, Joeri; Meinshausen, Malte; Schaeffer, Michiel; Knutti, Reto; Riahi, Keywan
    Limiting global warming to any level requires limiting the total amount of CO2 emissions, or staying within a CO2 budget. Here we assess how emissions from short-lived non-CO2 species like methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), black-carbon, and sulphates influence these CO2 budgets. Our default case, which assumes mitigation in all sectors and of all gases, results in a CO2 budget between 2011–2100 of 340 PgC for a >66% chance of staying below 2°C, consistent with the assessment of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Extreme variations of air-pollutant emissions from black-carbon and sulphates influence this budget by about ±5%. In the hypothetical case of no methane or HFCs mitigation—which is unlikely when CO2 is stringently reduced—the budgets would be much smaller (40% or up to 60%, respectively). However, assuming very stringent CH4 mitigation as a sensitivity case, CO2 budgets could be 25% higher. A limit on cumulative CO2 emissions remains critical for temperature targets. Even a 25% higher CO2 budget still means peaking global emissions in the next two decades, and achieving net zero CO2 emissions during the third quarter of the 21st century. The leverage we have to affect the CO2 budget by targeting non-CO2 diminishes strongly along with CO2 mitigation, because these are partly linked through economic and technological factors.
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    A multi-model assessment of the co-benefits of climate mitigation for global air quality
    (Bristol : IOP Publishing, 2016) Rao, Shilpa; Klimont, Zbigniew; Leitao, Joana; Riahi, Keywan; van Dingenen, Rita; Reis, Lara Aleluia; Calvin, Katherine; Dentener, Frank; Drouet, Laurent; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Harmsen, Mathijs; Luderer, Gunnar; Heyes, Chris; Strefler, Jessica; Tavoni, Massimo; van Vuuren, Detlef P.
    We present a model comparison study that combines multiple integrated assessment models with a reduced-form global air quality model to assess the potential co-benefits of global climate mitigation policies in relation to the World Health Organization (WHO) goals on air quality and health. We include in our assessment, a range of alternative assumptions on the implementation of current and planned pollution control policies. The resulting air pollution emission ranges significantly extend those in the Representative Concentration Pathways. Climate mitigation policies complement current efforts on air pollution control through technology and fuel transformations in the energy system. A combination of stringent policies on air pollution control and climate change mitigation results in 40% of the global population exposed to PM levels below the WHO air quality guideline; with the largest improvements estimated for India, China, and Middle East. Our results stress the importance of integrated multisector policy approaches to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.