Abstract
Abstract. In Paris, France, December 2015, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) invited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways. In Nairobi, Kenya, April 2016, the IPCC panel accepted the invitation. Here we describe the response devised within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) to provide tailored, cross-sectorally consistent impact projections to broaden the scientific basis for the report. The simulation protocol is designed to allow for (1) separation of the impacts of historical warming starting from pre-industrial conditions from impacts of other drivers such as historical land-use changes (based on pre-industrial and historical impact model simulations); (2) quantification of the impacts of additional warming up to 1.5 °C, including a potential overshoot and long-term impacts up to 2299, and comparison to higher levels of global mean temperature change (based on the low-emissions Representative Concentration Pathway RCP2.6 and a no-mitigation pathway RCP6.0) with socio-economic conditions fixed at 2005 levels; and (3) assessment of the climate effects based on the same climate scenarios while accounting for simultaneous changes in socio-economic conditions following the middle-of-the-road Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP2, Fricko et al., 2016) and in particular differential bioenergy requirements associated with the transformation of the energy system to comply with RCP2.6 compared to RCP6.0. With the aim of providing the scientific basis for an aggregation of impacts across sectors and analysis of cross-sectoral interactions that may dampen or amplify sectoral impacts, the protocol is designed to facilitate consistent impact projections from a range of impact models across different sectors (global and regional hydrology, lakes, global crops, global vegetation, regional forests, global and regional marine ecosystems and fisheries, global and regional coastal infrastructure, energy supply and demand, temperature-related mortality, and global terrestrial biodiversity).
Highlights
Societies are strongly influenced by weather and climate conditions
We describe the response devised within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) to provide tailored, cross-sectorally consistent impact projections to broaden the scientific basis for the report
In order to be included in the selection, daily CMIP5 global circulation model (GCM) output had to be available for the atmospheric variables listed in Table 1 covering at least 200 pre-industrial control years, the whole historical period from 1861 to 2005, and RCP2.6 and RCP6.0 from 2006 to 2099 each
Summary
Societies are strongly influenced by weather and climate conditions. It is generally understood that persistent weather patterns influence lifestyle, infrastructures, and agricultural practices across climatic zones. At the same time a growing array of detailed (processbased) models have been developed to translate projected changes in climate and weather into specific impacts on individual systems or processes, including vegetation cover, crop yields, marine ecosystems and fishing potentials, frequency and intensity of river floods, coastal flooding due to sea-level rise, water scarcity, distribution of vector-borne diseases, changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services, heat and cold-related mortality, labour productivity, and energy supply (e.g. hydropower potentials) or demand. These models provide a basis for a more process-based quantification of societal risks. That should be used as up-to-date reference by participating modelling groups when setting up and performing simulations
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