How well do integrated assessment models simulate climate change?

Integrated Assessment Models of Global Climate Change

We review recent work in the integrated assessment modeling of global climate change. This field has grown rapidly since 1990. Integrated assessment models seek to combine knowledge from multiple disciplines in formal integrated representations; inform policy-making, structure knowledge, and prioritize key uncertainties; and advance knowledge of broad system linkages and feedbacks, particularly...

How well do climate models simulate cloud vertical structure? A comparison between CALIPSO-GOCCP satellite observations and CMIP5 models

Decomposing Integrated Assessment Climate Change

We present a decomposition approach for integrated assessment modeling of climate policy based on a linear approximation of the climate system. Our objective is to demonstrate the usefulness of decomposition for integrated assessment models posed in a complementarity format. First, the complementarity formulation cum decomposition permits a precise representation of post-terminal damages thereb...

Evaluating integrated assessment models of global climate change

Integrated Assessment Models of global climate change (IAMs) are an established tool to study interlinkages between the human and the natural system. Insights from these complex models are widely used to advise policy-makers and to inform the general public. But up to now there has been little understanding of how these models can be evaluated and community-wide standards are missing. To answer...

How Well Do the CMIP5 Models Simulate the Antarctic Atmospheric Energy Budget?

The authors evaluate 23 coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models from phase 5 of CMIP (CMIP5) in terms of their ability to simulate the observed climatological mean energy budget of theAntarctic atmosphere. While the models are shown to capture the gross features of the energy budget well [e.g., the observed two-way balance between the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) net radiation and horizo...