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    The challenge to detect and attribute effects of climate change on human and natural systems
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer, 2013) Stone, D.; Auffhammer, M.; Carey, M.; Hansen, G.; Huggel, C.; Cramer, W.; Lobell, D.; Molau, U.; Solow, A.; Tibig, L.; Yohe, G.
    Anthropogenic climate change has triggered impacts on natural and human systems world-wide, yet the formal scientific method of detection and attribution has been only insufficiently described. Detection and attribution of impacts of climate change is a fundamentally cross-disciplinary issue, involving concepts, terms, and standards spanning the varied requirements of the various disciplines. Key problems for current assessments include the limited availability of long-term observations, the limited knowledge on processes and mechanisms involved in changing environmental systems, and the widely different concepts applied in the scientific literature. In order to facilitate current and future assessments, this paper describes the current conceptual framework of the field and outlines a number of conceptual challenges. Based on this, it proposes workable cross-disciplinary definitions, concepts, and standards. The paper is specifically intended to serve as a baseline for continued development of a consistent cross-disciplinary framework that will facilitate integrated assessment of the detection and attribution of climate change impacts.
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    A new scenario framework for climate change research: The concept of shared socioeconomic pathways
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer, 2014) O'Neill, B.C.; Kriegler, E.; Riahi, K.; Ebi, K.L.; Hallegatte, S.; Carter, T.R.; Mathur, R.; van Vuuren, D.P.
    The new scenario framework for climate change research envisions combining pathways of future radiative forcing and their associated climate changes with alternative pathways of socioeconomic development in order to carry out research on climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation. Here we propose a conceptual framework for how to define and develop a set of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) for use within the scenario framework. We define SSPs as reference pathways describing plausible alternative trends in the evolution of society and ecosystems over a century timescale, in the absence of climate change or climate policies. We introduce the concept of a space of challenges to adaptation and to mitigation that should be spanned by the SSPs, and discuss how particular trends in social, economic, and environmental development could be combined to produce such outcomes. A comparison to the narratives from the scenarios developed in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) illustrates how a starting point for developing SSPs can be defined. We suggest initial development of a set of basic SSPs that could then be extended to meet more specific purposes, and envision a process of application of basic and extended SSPs that would be iterative and potentially lead to modification of the original SSPs themselves.