Global land area 1700-2100 showing range of
future IAM scenarios and smooth transitions in
the harmonization year (2005)
In preparation for the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international community is developing new advanced Earth System Models (ESM) 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 Pathways (RCP) scenarios of the future (2005-2100) are being provided by four Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) teams to be used as input to the ESMs for future carbon-climate projections. The goal of our Land-use Harmonization project is to prepare a harmonized set of land-use scenarios that smoothly connects historical reconstructions of land-use based on HYDE data, with future projections based on the IAM implementations of the RCPs, in the format required by ESMs. Our land-use harmonization strategy estimates fractional land-use patterns and underlying land-use transitions annually for the time period 1500-2100 at 0.5° x 0.5° resolution while minimizing differences at the transition between the historical reconstruction ending conditions and IAM initial conditions, and working to preserve the future changes depicted by the IAMs at the grid level. These harmonized data products provide the first consistent set of land-use change and emission scenarios for studies of human impacts on the past and future global carbon-climate system.
For more information, related publications, and contact information for collaborators, please see the links page.
Project Contacts:
|
Dr. Louise Chini |
Dr. George Hurtt |
Dr. Steve Frolking |