Special issue of Climatic Change journal on the Representative Concentration Pathways released
A new Special issue of the journal Climatic Change describes four new key scenarios for the climate research community: the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCPs). The RCPs describe a wide range of potential futures for the main drivers of climate change: greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions and land use. The scenarios cover the range from high emission futures to scenarios consistent with the 2°C target.
The RCPs were developed by a cooperative process across various disciplines involved in climate research. The quantification was led by the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), involving participation of many institutes around the world, including PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Stanford University, University of Maryland and several others. The scenarios form a basis for new climate research, including experiments for the IPCC report.
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