Developing and Applying Scenarios: A summary from the Third Assessment Report

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Developing and Applying Scenarios A summary
from theThird Assessment Report

• Roger N. Jones
• CSIRO Atmospheric Research

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Acknowledgments

• Tim Carter CLA Chapter III slides
• Emilio La Rovere, Rik Leemans, Linda Mearns,
  Naki Nakicenovic, Barrie Pittock, Sergei
  Semenov, Jim Skea, Mike Hulme

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Chapter 13 WG IClimate Scenario Development

• Mearns and Hulme et al.
• Distinguishes between
• Climate change scenarios (representation of
  change from baseline)
• Climate scenarios (representation of future
  climate)

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Chapter 13 WG IClimate Scenario Development

• Mearns and Hulme et al.
• Key development of methods, for
• Representing uncertainty
• High resolution information
• Variability and extreme events

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Chain of dependencies in global change scenarios
Source Mearns et al., 2001
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Typology of extreme climate events
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Chapter 3 WG IIDeveloping and Applying Scenarios

• Carter and La Rovere
• Major developments
• Features non-climatic scenarios
• Characterises SRES scenarios
• Recommends consistency between scenarios
• Uncertainty, variability and extremes (As for Ch.
  13)

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Types of scenarios

• Climate
• Socioeconomic
• Land-use and Land-cover Change
• Environmental
• Sea-level rise

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Structure of Chapter 3
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Socioeconomic scenarios

• Baseline socioeconomic vulnerability
• Pre-climate change
• Determine climate change impacts
• Post-adaptation vulnerability

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Land-use and land-cover scenarios

• Food security
• Carbon cycling
• Current and future land-use
• Integrated assessment models most appropriate for
  developing LUCC scenarios

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Environmental scenarios

• Atmospheric carbon dioxide
• Tropospheric ozone
• Acidifying compounds
• UV radiation
• Water resources
• Marine pollution

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Sea-level rise scenarios

• Need long baseline records
• Need to estimate relative sea level rather than
  absolute
• Regional variations unknown
• Variability important
• Amenable to risk assessment

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The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES)
Source Nakicenovic et al. (2000)
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Projected changes in extreme climate events and
impacts
Source IPCC WG II SPM, 2001
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Projected changes in extreme climate events and
impacts
Source IPCC WG II SPM, 2001