Climate Scenarios Model v.1
Brett W. Parris

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CLIMATE SCENARIOS MODEL

This is a very simple model which generates likely climate impacts from a given amount of warming above pre-industrial levels.

This model uses NetLogo 4.1. The applet requires Java 5 or higher. Java must be enabled in your browser settings. Mac users must have Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. Windows and Linux users may obtain the latest Java from Sun's Java site. 

HOW IT WORKS

The impacts for different temperatures are taken from the IPCC (2007) report of Working Group II and the Stern Report. Where bands are given for a numerical range of impacts, these have been scaled. So for example if an impact is given as a range of 10% to 20% over the temperature range of 1 to 2 degrees, then the impact is scaled linearly so that the assumed impact of 1.5 degrees is 15%. This can give a misleading impression of precision, such as for example when calculating the number of people affected by water stress. Remember that the figures are approximate.

References:

IPCC, (2007) "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", ed. Parry, M.L., Canziani, O.F., Palutikof, J.P., van der Linden, P.J. and Hanson, C.E.; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, pp. ix + 976.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg2.htm

Stern, N.H., (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, xix + 692 pp.
http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm

HOW TO USE IT

Push the 'set up' button, use the slider to choose what temperature you want to see the impacts for, choose to turn carbon-cycle effects on or off, and the size of the carbon-cycle effect using the slider, and then press the 'go' button.

The black square is also not used in this version.

THINGS TO TRY

Try using the switch to include the effects of feedbacks on the carbon-cycle. The range of an extra 0.1 to 1.5 C extra warming is based on the results of a comparison of 11 coupled climate–carbon cycle models.

Source: Friedlingstein, P., et al. (2006) "Climate-Carbon Cycle Feedback Analysis: Results from the C4MIP Model Intercomparison", Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, No. 14, July, pp. 3337-3353. http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3800.1

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