A Strategy for Climate Change Stabilization Experiments with AOGCMSs and ESMs

The development of a new generation of climate models is underway with the expectation that future models will be able to incorporate carbon cycle dynamics and offer more accurately projected stabilization scenarios. This bulletin lays out a roadmap for a new stage of climate modeling efforts, suggesting that two timeframes be addressed near-term (2005-2030) and long-term (2005-2100). The near-term would disregard the effects of the carbon cycle and use already committed to CO2 levels to gauge regional impacts. The long-term models would assess climate outcomes on the basis of potential policy options and incorporate carbon cycle feedbacks through the use of three different experiments (1) long-term benchmark stabilization, (2) carbon cycle response to increasing concentrations, and (3) emissions driven carbon cycle/climate.

Suggested citation:

Hibbard, Kathy A, Gerald Meehl, Peter M. Cox, and Pierre Friedlingstein. 2006. A Strategy for Climate Change Stabilization Experiments with AOGCMs and Earth Systems. Produced at AGCI workshop entitled, ¤Earth System Models: The Next Generation,Œ 30 July – 5 August, 2006.