A new scenario framework for Climate Change Research: scenario matrix architecture

By D. P. Vuuren, Elmar Kriegler, Brian C. O'Neill, K. Ebi, Keywan Riahi, T. Carter, J. Edmonds, StÃ©phane Hallegatte, T. Kram, R. Mathur and 1 more. Climatic Change, 2014

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This paper describes the scenario matrix architecture that underlies a framework for developing new scenarios for climate change research. The matrix architecture facilitates addressing key questions related to current climate research and policy-making: identifying the effectiveness of different adaptation and mitigation strategies (in terms of their costs, risks and other consequences) and the possible trade-offs and synergies. The two main axes of the matrix are: 1) the level of radiative forcing of the climate system (as characterised by the representative concentration pathways) and 2) a set of alternative plausible trajectories of future global development (described as shared socio-economic pathways). The matrix can be used to guide scenario development at different scales. It can also be used as a heuristic tool for classifying new and existing scenarios for assessment. Key elements of the architecture, in particular the shared socio-economic pathways and shared policy assumptions (devices for incorporating explicit mitigation and adaptation policies), are elaborated in other papers in this special issue.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fd38f0d0c78bb96dfa5220385697f7a99bf484e5

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Citations in the corpus

Climate and socio-economic scenarios for climate change research and assessment: reconciling the new with the old (2014, positive): “…radiative forcing and climate between SRES scenarios and RCPs. Finally, these mappings were pooled using the scenario matrix framework outlined in van Vuuren et al. (2013 While these mappings are approximate, it should be remembered that scenarios, by their nature, are not intended to provide…”
Fossil-fueled development (SSP5): An energy and resource intensive scenario for the 21st century (2017, positive): “In line with the conceptual approach of the new scenario framework (van Vuuren et al., 2014), the impact of policy interventions and climate change can be analyzed with respect to this baseline to explore the contingency of future developments on present and future actions.”
A critical view on the current application of LCA for new technologies and recommendations for improved practice (2020, methodology): “For scenario generation they build on the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) developed by the climate change research community and constructed with Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) (van Vuuren et al., 2014).”
Future growth patterns of world regions – A GDP scenario approach (2017, background): “The contribution of this paper is to develop a set of five longterm GDP projections as part of the shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) (O’Neill et al., 2014), a major component of a new scenario framework (van Vuuren et al., 2014).”
A protocol for an intercomparison of biodiversity and ecosystem services models using harmonized land-use and climate scenarios (2018, background): “The SSPs can be combined with RCP-based climate projections to explore a range of futures for climate change and land-use change and are being used in a wide range of impact modelling intercomparisons (Rosenzweig et al., 2017; van Vuuren et al., 2014).”
An uncertain future, deep uncertainty, scenarios, robustness and adaptation: How do they fit together? (2016, background): “…scenarios in higher dimensions, such as the combination of framed scenarios considering different factors of interest, including the combination of representative concentrations pathways (RCPs), shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) and shared policy assumptions (SPAs) (Van Vuuren et al., 2014).”
Future air pollution in the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (2017, background): “The SSP narratives (van Vuuren et al., 2014; O’Neill et al., 2014) comprise a textual description of how the future might unfold, including a description of major socio-economic, demographic, technological, lifestyle, policy, institutional and other trends.”
Global emissions pathways under different socioeconomic scenarios for use in CMIP6: a dataset of harmonized emissions trajectories through the end of the century (2018, background): “…SSPs exist, with model quantifications that span potential futures of green or fossil-fueled growth (SSP1 van Vuuren et al., 2017, and SSP5 Kriegler et al., 2017), high inequality between or within countries (SSP3 Fujimori et al., 2017, and SSP4 Calvin et al., 2017), and a…”