Download UKCIP02 Climate Change Scenarios

What is the point of this session?
• To use the UK’s experience to give ideas
about creating and using climate change
scenarios in other countries and situations
• Not a talk on climate modelling!
• An overview of who, how, what and why
• Discussion of how these experiences apply to
your own needs
The next hour and a half…..
• What are climate change scenarios and how have
they featured in the UK?
• How have the “UKCIP02” scenarios been created?
• Who are the major players?
• How have we dealt with uncertainties?
• Potential applications of the UKCIP02 scenarios
• How can the scenarios be improved?
• Lessons for the future
• Discussion
What are scenarios?
A scenario is:
“a coherent, internally consistent and plausible
description of a possible future state of the world”
(Parry and Carter, 1998)
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Not a forecast or a prediction
A series of pictures of what the world could look
like in the future
Climate change scenarios
• Socio-economic futures (eg. population,
economy, carbon intensity) - affects how
GHG may change
• Climate modelling
• Result: integrated scenarios - more
sophisticated than pure climate modelling
A history of UK Climate
Change scenarios
• Climate Change Impacts Review Group of
the DoE (CCIRG)
• 1991, 1996
• Presented a range of highly artificial globalscale scenarios (CO2 doubling)
• Tended to present a ‘best guess’ based on
1980s Met Office UKTR model and
HadCM1
The 1998 UKCIP scenarios
• 1997: UK Climate Impacts Programme
(UKCIP)
• 1998: Climatic Research Unit, Hadley Centre
created UKCIP98 scenarios
• Wider range of variables and time-scales than
CCIRG
• Range of four scenarios based on IS92a/IS92d
• HadCM2 model
How have the UKCIP02
scenarios been created?
UKCIP02 Climate Change
Scenarios
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Mike Hulme
Xianfu Lu
John Turnpenny
Tim Mitchell
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Geoff Jenkins
Richard Jones
Jason Lowe
James Murphy
David Hassell
Penny Boorman
Ruth McDonald
Steven Hill
UKCIP02 Climate Change
Scenarios
• Funded by:
• For:
The UKCIP02 Scenarios
• To be launched April 2002
• Revised scenarios using developments over past
three years
• Explicitly linked to four socio-economic scenarios
produced by IPCC
• Informed by the Third IPCC Climate Change
Assessment Report
• Uses more sophisticated HadCM3 and regional
HadRM3 models (more greenhouse gas species,
improved ocean and vegetation models)
• Much more detailed regional information (104 vs. 4
grid boxes)
• 5 km observed data set
• Responses to users: much more on extremes; rapid
climate change; Gulf Stream; uncertainty
The SRES Scenarios
Storyline
A1
A2
B1
B2
Description
Very rapid economic growth; population peaks mid-century; social, cultural and
economic convergence among regions; market mechanisms dominate. Subdivisions:
A1FI – reliance on fossil fuels; A1T – reliance on non-fossil fuels; A1B – a balance
across all fuel sources
Self-reliance; preservation of local identities; continuously increasing population;
economic growth on regional scales
Clean and efficient technologies; reduction in material use; global solutions to
economic, social and environmental sustainability; improved equity; population peaks
mid-century
Local solutions to sustainability; continuously increasing population at a lower rate
than in A2; less rapid technological change than in B1 and A1
Global carbon emissions - four IPCC scenarios
(2000 - 2100)
Carbon dioxide concentrations: IPCC scenarios
The four UKCIP02 scenarios
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High Emissions
Medium-High Emissions
Medium-Low Emissions
Low Emissions
A1FI
A2
B2
B1
as inputs to Hadley Centre’s HadCM3 model
(effective sensitivity 3.0 deg C)
Global temperature (2000 - 2100)
The Hadley Centre Global Climate Model
(HadCM3)
19 levels in
300 km
atmosphere
2.5
lat
1.25 km
1.25 km
20 levels
in ocean
-5km
3.75
long
Hadley Centre
Regional
Climate Model
(HadRM3)
50 km grid
What are UKCIP02’s defining
characteristics?
• It was GENERIC rather than for a
SPECIFIC impacts project
• The centre of a policy network of groups
with different aims
• Scenario range examined emissions uncertainty
rather than uncertainty in the model
What do the key players
represent?
• DEFRA - funder; government policy;
international obligations; public perception
• UKCIP - scenario users (scientists, policymakers,
impact assessments)
• Hadley - rigorous science basis of climate
modelling
• Tyndall - leading the analysis and writing;
coordinating report production
The results
• UKCIP02 had to balance needs of all the
organisations
• Ease of communication vs. rigorous science
vs. usefulness to impacts community
• Example - pattern-scaling
Pattern-scaling
• Only A2 emissions, 2071-2100 means were
modelled
• Other time periods and emissions scenarios
were produced by ‘scaling’ the model output
patterns
• Scientifically less than rigorous
• But needed by the users (eg 2020s, 2050s)
Interaction with other groups
• Hadley Centre modellers - storm
surges/ocean modelling
• Land movement (Durham)
• Sea level (POL)
What will happen to sea level?
Sea level change: Four IPCC scenarios
Components of sea-level rise in 21st century
Commitment to sea-level rise: 600 + years
UK land movement
(mm/yr) [Source: Ian Shennan]
How have we dealt with
uncertainties?
What uncertainties are there?
• Emissions - how will society change? We
chose to explicitly include these in the range
of scenarios
• Scientific - how do different models represent
the environment? We have assessed the main
scientific uncertainties and provided guidance
on how to incorporate these
UK temperature and
precipitation (2080s)
comparison of models
Winter temperature change with C-cycle (2080s,
Medium-High Emissions)
Summer temperature change with C-cycle (2080s,
Medium-High Emissions)
Methane concentrations - with and without
climate change feedbacks (A2 Emissions)
Ozone concentrations - with and without climate
change feedbacks (A2 Emissions)
Pattern-scaling
• Scientifically acceptable to scale HadRM3
patterns with other models’ global
temperatures? We decided not.
• Acceptable comparison between model and
pattern-scaled results? Yes.
HadRM2 vs. HadRM3
Mean temperature
change
HadRM2 vs.
HadRM3
Precipitation change
Daily maximum
temperature:
HadRM3
(dotted) vs.
observations
(solid)
Potential applications of the
UKCIP02 scenarios
• Impacts, Adaptation, Vulnerability
• Informing Mitigation Policy
• Education and communication
Stakeholder
Countryside and
conservation
managers
Decision
Evaluating and managing a
changing natural
environment
Scenario Requirements
Guided sensitivity analysis
combining historical variations
in climate with future changes in
climate under a range of
scenarios
UKCIP Study
MONARCH
Regional land use
planners
How to assess relative
vulnerability and plan for
change across different
sectors
Regional scenarios with a wide
range of climate outputs
Sub-UK and
regional
assessments
Regional coastal
and flood defence
managers
Developing a risk
assessment for a coastal
“cell” or river catchment
Geographically explicit
scenarios, showing the
likelihood of changes in extreme
weather events
RegIS
Water resource
managers
Evaluation of the future
water supply/demand
balance and whether to plan
for new resources
Regional scenarios with explicit
probability assessment; return
period of extreme weather events
CD:DEW
Lessons for the future
Questions for discussion
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Who are your scenarios for?
Who is funding them?
How will they link climate and social science?
Who is the most important player?
How might the different powers interact?
How will you communicate them to relevant groups
and to the public?
• Are they ‘user-friendly’?
• Which government department is responsible, if
any?