Harmonisation of Global Land-Use Scenarios for the Period 1500-2100 for IPCC-AR5

Journal Article · Mon Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · iLEAPS Newsletter, 7:6-8

OSTI ID:993357

Hurtt, George; Chini, Louise Parsons; Frolking, Steve; Betts, Richard; Feddema, Johannes; Fischer, Guenther; Goldeweijk, Kees K; Hibbard, K; Janetos, Anthony C; Jones, Chris; Kindermann, G; Kinoshita, Tsuguki; Riahi, Keywan; Shevliakova, Elena; Smith, Steven J; Stehfest, Eike; Thomson, Allison M; Thornton, Peter; van Vuuren, Detlef; Wang, Yingping

In preparation for the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate change assessment (IPCC-AR5), the international community is developing new advanced computer models (CMs) to address the combined effects of human activities (e.g. land-use and fossil fuel emissions) on the carbon-climate system. In addition, four Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios of the future (2005-2100) are being developed by four Integrated Assessment Modeling teams (IAMs) to be used as input to the CMs for future climate projections. The diversity of requirements and approaches among CMs and IAMs for tracking land-use changes (past, present, and future), presents major challenges for treating land-use comprehensively and consistently between these communities. As part of an international working group, we have been working to meet these challenges by developing a "harmonized" set of land-use change scenarios that smoothly connects gridded historical reconstructions of land-use with future projections, in a format required by CMs. This approach to harmonizing the treatment of land-use between two key modeling communities, CMs and IAMs, represents a major advance that will facilitate more consistent and fuller treatments of land-use/land-use change effects including both CO2 emissions and corresponding land-surface changes.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 993357
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-65162; KP1703030
• Journal Information: iLEAPS Newsletter, 7:6-8, Journal Name: iLEAPS Newsletter, 7:6-8 Vol. 7
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CLIMATES
CLIMATIC CHANGE
COMMUNITIES
COMPUTERS
FOSSIL FUELS
LAND USE
SIMULATION