A proposal for a new scenario framework to support research and assessment in different climate research communities

In this paper, we propose a scenario framework that could provide a scenario “thread” through the different climate research communities (climate change – vulnerability, impact, and adaptation - and mitigation) in order to support assessment of mitigation and adaptation strategies and climate impacts. The scenario framework is organized around a matrix with two main axes: radiative forcing levels and socio-economic conditions. The radiative forcing levels (and the associated climate signal) are described by the new Representative Concentration Pathways. The second axis, socio-economic developments comprises elements that affect the capacity for mitigation and adaptation, as well as the exposure to climate impacts. The proposed scenarios derived from this framework are limited in number, allow for comparison across various mitigation and adaptation levels, address a range of vulnerability characteristics, provide information across climate forcing and vulnerability states and span a full century time scale. Assessments based on the proposed scenario framework would strengthen cooperation between integrated-assessment modelers, climate modelers and vulnerability, impact and adaptation researchers, and most importantly, facilitate the development of more consistent and comparable research within and across these research communities. ⺠We discussed how scenarios can be developed that can be used to support adaptation and mitigation analysis. ⺠A scenario framework is proposed based on two separate axes: the climate signal and socio-economic developments. ⺠The paper shows that these axes are sufficiently independent based on analysis of scenario literature. ⺠The second axis can be related to the vulnerability to climate change and the ability to mitigate. ⺠It is shown how such a framework can be used both to develop new scenarios and classify existing scenarios.