Scenarios in IPCC assessments: lessons from AR6 and opportunities for AR7

Journal Article · Fri Jan 05 00:00:00 EST 2024 · npj Climate Action

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-023-00082-1· OSTI ID:2279135

Pirani, Anna ^[1]; Fuglestvedt, Jan S. ^[2]; Byers, Edward ^[3]; O’Neill, Brian ^[4]; Riahi, Keywan ^[3]; Lee, June-Yi ^[5]; Marotzke, Jochem ^[6]; Rose, Steven K. ^[7]; Schaeffer, Roberto ^[8]; Tebaldi, Claudia ^[4]

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1. Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC), Venice (Italy); Università Cà Foscari, Venice (Italy)
2. CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo (Norway)
3. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria)
4. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Institute
5. Pusan National Univ., Busan (Korea, Republic of); Institute for Basic Science, Busan (Korea, Republic of)
6. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg (Germany); Univ. of Hamburg (Germany)
7. Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Research, Washington, DC (United States); Electric Power Research Inst. (EPRI), Washington, DC (United States)
8. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Cidade Universitária, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Scenarios have been an important integrating element in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the understanding of possible climate outcomes, impacts and risks, and mitigation futures. Integration supports a consistent, coherent assessment, new insights and the opportunity to address policy-relevant questions that would not be possible otherwise, for example, which impacts are unavoidable, which are reversible, what is a consistent remaining carbon budget to keep temperatures below a level and what would be a consistent route of action to achieve that goal. The AR6 builds on community frameworks that are developed to support a coherent use of scenarios across the assessment, yet their use in the assessment and the related timelines presented coordination challenges. From lessons within each Working Group (WG) assessment and the cross-WG experience, we present insights into the role of scenarios in future assessments, including the enhanced integration of impacts into scenarios, near-term information and community coordination efforts. Recommendations and opportunities are discussed for how scenarios can support strengthened consistency and policy relevance in the next IPCC assessment cycle.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 2279135
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA--185627
• Journal Information: npj Climate Action, Journal Name: npj Climate Action Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 3; ISSN 2731-9814
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES