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

Journal Article · · npj Climate Action
ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4];  [3]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [7]; ORCiD logo [8]; ORCiD logo [4]
  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)
+ Show Author Affiliations

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, Vol. 3, Issue 1; ISSN 2731-9814
Publisher:
Springer NatureCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (8)

Future Global Climate: Scenario-based Projections and Near-term Information book June 2023
Point of Departure and Key Concepts book June 2023
Key Risks across Sectors and Regions book June 2023
Framing, Context, and Methods book June 2023
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) Literature Database, Version 2, 2020-2021 (Preliminary Release) dataset January 2022
The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6 journal January 2016
Climate and socio-economic scenarios for climate change research and assessment: reconciling the new with the old journal November 2013
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) Literature Database, Version 2, 2020-2021 (Preliminary Release) dataset January 2022

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