The Future of Integrated Assessment Models ofHuman-Earth Systems Dynamics
JAE EDMONDS
Ohyama Memorial Hall, NIES
Tsukuba, JAPAN13 November 2013

Roadmap to the seminar

Thanks to AIM and Toshi in particular forthe opportunity to be here today.
Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)
Who are we and what have we done?
Where the field is going?
The integrated Earth system model
Regional integrated assessment modeling
Building a community of practice (IAMC)
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Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)
IAMs integrate human andnatural Earth system climatescience.
IAMs provide physical science
researchers with information abouthuman systems such as GHG
emissions, land use and land cover.
IAMs capture interactions between
complex and highly nonlinearsystems. IAMs provide insights thatwould be otherwise unavailable fromdisciplinary research.

IAMs provide important,science-based decision supporttools.
IAMs support national, international,regional, and private-sector
decisions.
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RCP-Class IAMs
Models like NIES’ AIM and PNNL’s GCAM.
Contains detailed representation of both humanand physical Earth systems.
Physical system models of intermediate complexity.
Provide all of the information that state-of-the-art
physical Earth system models need as drivers.
Detailed process representation, e.g. waterbalance model, graded wind resources, population
distribution, buildings, etc.
Their central focus is representing human (e.g.
economic) interactions with physical systems.
Explicit representations of technologies.
Beginning to incorporate climate impacts andadaptation for specific systems, e.g. agriculture,
water, forestry, buildings energy.

AIM
Japan: The Asia Integrated Model (AIM)structure of AIM/CGE
GHGs
emissions

2000

Production sectors

GHGs
emissionsproduction factor
marketcapitallandlabor
resource

produced commoditymarket
foodenergy
service...

Final demand sectorclimatechangetradeJapan
China...

2050
Annual parameter change

Energy technology model: energy efficiency
Agriculture model: land productivity...

feedback

eg. land productivity change due to climate change

scenarios: population, GDP, ...

2100

14-region
GCAM
aggregations

Geospacially energy supply data

Ocean Carbon Cycle
The Energy System
EnergyDemandTechnologies

EnergyDemandEnergyMarkets

Regional
Resource
Bases

The Economy
Regional
Labor ForceRegional
EnergyConversion
Technologies

Regional GDP

Regional
Labor
Productivity

Demand•Crops•Livestock
Forests products

EnergySupplyAtmosphericComposition,
Radiative Forcing, &Climate

GHG
Emissions

Commercial
Biomass

Agriculture andLand Use

Technology

Regional Land
Categories andCharacteristics

EnergyProduction.
Transformation& Use

Land Use ChangeEmissions

Production

Supply•Crops•Livestock•Biocrops•Foresty Products

Geospacially explicit land use data

•Crops•Livestock•Forests products•Biomass energy

Ag-Land Markets•Land rent
•Crop prices•Livestock prices•Forest product prices•Biomass prices

Land Use

Terrestrial CarbonCycle•Crops•Livestock•Managed Forests•UnmanagedGCAM4

RCP-class IAMs Around the World

Model

Home Institution

AIMNational Institutes for Environmental
Studies, Tsukuba Japan

Asia Integrated Model

Japan: The Asia Integrated Model (AIM)structure of AIM/CGE
GHGs
emissions

2000

Production sectors
production factor
marketcapitallandlabor
resource

GHGs
emissionsproduced commodity
marketfoodenergy
service...

Final demand sector

climatechange

trade

Japan
China
...

2050
Annual parameter change

Energy technology model: energy efficiency
Agriculture model: land productivity...

feedback

eg. land productivity change due to climate change

scenarios: population, GDP, ...

2100

GCAM

Global Change Assessment Model

14-region
GCAM
aggregations

Geospacially energy supply data

Joint Global Change Research Institute,PNNL, College Park, MD

Ocean Carbon Cycle
The Energy System
EnergyDemandTechnologies

EnergyDemandEnergy
Markets

Regional
Resource
Bases

The Economy
Regional
Labor ForceRegional
EnergyConversion
Technologies

Regional GDP

Regional
Labor
Productivity

Demand•Crops•Livestock
Forests products

EnergySupplyJoint Program, MIT, Cambridge, MA

IMAGE

PBL Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency, Bildhoven, The
Netherlands

Land Use Change
Emissions

Production

Supply•Crops•Livestock•Biocrops•Foresty Products

Geospacially explicit land use data

IGSM

AtmosphericComposition,
Radiative Forcing, &ClimateGHG
Emissions

Commercial
Biomass

Agriculture andLand Use

Technology

Regional Land
Categories andCharacteristics

EnergyProduction.
Transformation& Use•Crops•Livestock•Forests products•Biomass energy

Terrestrial Carbon
Cycle

Ag-Land Markets•Land rent
•Crop prices•Livestock prices•Forest product prices•Biomass prices

Land Use•Crops•Livestock•Managed Forests•Unmanaged

GCAM

Integrated Global System Model

The Integrated Model to Assess the Global
Environment

Socio-economic system: 24 / 26 world regions

Environmental system: 0.5 x 0.5 degree

http://www.mnp.nl/image

25MESSAGE

Model for Energy Supply Strategy Alternatives andtheir General Environmental Impact

International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis; Laxenburg, Austria

EU: The IIASA Integrated Assessment Framework
GHG Emissions
Industry, Energy, and Land-based Mitigation

Deforestation & Afforestation(modeled on 0.5 x 0.5)

Riahi, et al. 2007

REMIND

Regionalized Model of Investments and TechnologicalDevelopment

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts
Research; Potsdam, Germany

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WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

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Where have we been?
Much of the focus of the RCP-class models has been onemissions mitigation including examination ofFuture scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions from energy,industry, and land-use.
Cost-minimizing pathways to various long-term goals (decade tocentury time scales), e.g. 550 ppm CO2, 2oC, 80% emissions
reductions
The role of technology—nuclear, bioenergy, CCS, otherrenewables, end-use efficiency
The role of policy—carbon taxes (mostly), regulatory strategies(renewable energy requirements, technology performancestandards, e.g. “front-runner” or U.S. EPA power plant emissions
standards.
7

Scenarios: the Representative
Concentration Pathways (RCPs)

Emissions (GtC/yr)

Four scenarios worked out with the 3 climate
research communities.
Used for the CMIP 5 and IPCC AR5
Anthropogenic GHGs, gridded aerosols andshort-lived species
Gridded land use and land cover (½o x ½o)Extensions to 2300

MESSAGEAIMGCAM
IMAGE
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RCPs have been used by climate modelers
in CMIP5Emissions (GtC/yr)

MESSAGE

AIM

GCAM

IMAGE
Source: Knutti, R. and J. Sedláček (2012), Robustness
and uncertainties in the new CMIP5 climate model
projections, Nature Climate Change,
doi:10.1038/nclimate1716

The next generation of scenarios are theShared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)
Designed for faster climate assessment
Providing information for Impacts,
Adaptation, and Vulnerability (IAV)
researchers.
Link to the RCPs and CMIP5 (climatechange data base)
Explore the full range of challenges tomitigation and adaptation to climate change

5 reference scenarios designed to explore
challenges to mitigation and challenges
to adaptation.
Up to 4 policy intervention versions of eachcorresponding to thereference scenario—corresponding
RCP levels
6.0 Wm-2, 4.5 Wm-2, and 2.6 Wm-2
Employing Shared climate Policy
Assumptions (SPAs)
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The Future of IAM Research

11Growing overlap in climate researchcommunities

12Growing overlap in climate researchcommunities

13Research Challenges Going Forward

Many of the cutting edge developments for
IAMs feature advances in more than one ofthese domains.
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Two Emerging Frontiers for IAMs
Integrated Earth system models(iESM)

Closely couple human systems from
RCP-class model with a state-of-theart physical Earth system model.
Creates the potential for fully-coupledexperiments with feedbacks fromhuman responses to climate change
and feedbacks from climate change tohuman systems.
E.g. albedo feedbacks from bioenergy
and changing land cover.

Regional integrated assessmentmodels

Their central problem is representing
the near-term, sub-national,
interactions between human andphysical Earth systems, coupled tolarger system models.
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THE iESM PROJECT

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The Grand Challenge: Closely couple humanAND physical Earth systems in a single
integrated Earth system model
Scientific questions
Is the present CMIP5 “parallel process” approach good enough?
Will human activities affect local and regional climate on scales thatmatter?
Will climate change itself affect human decision making (energy use,land-use, water use) in ways that feed back to local, regional and global
climate forcing?

Scientific challenges
Coupling—models designed for specific scientific applications, needed tobe evolved for a more general, closely coupled, scientific application.
Data—reconciling multiple observational data sets
Verification—testing the validity of results, code and architecture
Building the scientific team—language, culture, paradigm

17

The Integrated Earth System Model (iESM)
Project
The iESM project is a multi-laboratory, interdisciplinary
collaboration between:
PNNL,LBNL,ORNL andthe University of Maryland

Using four modeling systems
GCAM (human system components
CLM (Community Land Model)
CESM (Community Earth System Model; containing CLM)
GLM (Global Land-use Model)

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A first iESM experiment
Experiment: One-way coupling
Scientific Question: How much difference does land-use emissions
mitigation policy make for near-term and long-term climate change?

HumanActivities &Policy

Emissions & Land
UseAtmosphere& Climate

We run two scenarios: RCP 4.5 (UCT) and Rep 4.5 (FFICT)
We hold total CO2 and non-CO2 GHG emissions fixed and run the twoscenarios that limit year 2095 radiative forcing to 4.5 Wm-2.
In RCP 4.5 (UCT) we use the original RCP 4.5 land use.
In Rep 4.5 (FFICT) we use the alternative land use—the ONLY thing thatis different between the two.
This alone created an interesting scientific challenge and resulted in apaper.

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Results of iESM one-way coupling experiment
Finding: Land-use policy exerts amajor influence on the global climate
system through direct physicaleffects.
Implications: The present
assessment approach (the “parallelprocess”) needs important revisions
The assumption that scenarios witha common radiative forcing fromatmospheric constituents (i.e.
ignoring direct physical effects fromland-use) yields approximately thesame climate change, is badly
wrong.
Local and regional climate
implications of human land-use
change are large and may not be
addressable outside of the context ofa fully coupled iESM.

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Two-way learning
A project like the iESM creates the potential to parameterize IAM
physical system emulators to reflect the behavior of the larger ESM.
Creates the capability to rapidly assess scientific questions.
Some questions can be answered using an IAM with an ESM
emulator.
Use of the IAM can quickly identify those for which full iESM
calculations are needed.

21

Regional Integrated Modeling22

Regional Integrated Assessment Models
With DOE leadership and support a new generation ofmodels is emerging that are uniquely positioned to help
inform regional decision making.
Couple global scale models, e.g. CESM and GCAM, with
Regional scale models of energy, land, water andinfrastructure.
For example, RIAM is a DOE/SC sponsored research
project that is pushing models and science forward. Itlinks:
regional climate,hydrology,socioeconomics,energy infrastructure,
coastal processes, andagriculture and land use models

to investigate the multifaceted impacts of climate change,
as well as potential adaptation and mitigation strategies
being considered by regional stakeholders.
23

Linking global scale systems to regional andlocal systems—PRIMA as an example
The Platform for Regional Integrated Modeling and Analysis (PRIMA) is a flexible,
modular, tool that uses global scale models (currently working with GCAM and CESM)
to provide a global context in which to set regional climate, energy, water, land andinfrastructure models for the assessment of climate change and climate variability

DOE investments through RIAM are enhancing, extending, and applying modelingtools, e.g. PRIMA, to explore issues such as:
Impacts of hurricane-driven storm surge on Gulf Coast energy installations
Combined impacts of heat waves and drought on electricity reliability
Understanding the value of integrated, multi-scale modeling24AIM and Multi-scale ModelingAIM has the longest record of developing and coupling models at
multiple scales.
AIM’s work includes work with energy, terrestrial systems, andhydrologic systems.

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H08 model: Water resource model•Characteristics
1.
2.

3.

High spatial resolution (0.5㼻㽢0.5㼻, total66,420 grid cells)
Simulate both water availability (streamflow)
and water use at daily-basis
Deal with interaction between naturalhydrological cycle and anthropogenic activities
HumanActivity

Natural
WaterCycle

452 reservoirs, 4140 km3
Hanasaki et al., 2006, J. of Hydrol.
Hanasaki et al. ,2008a,b, Hydrol. Earth Sys. Sci.
Hanasaki et al., 2010, J. of Hydrol

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Ecosystem model linked with AIM for RCP
Transition Matrix (λ)
Land clearing

agriculture(λPA)

primaryforest
ForestHarvesting(λPS)(λ )NaturalDisturbance

SALand abandonment

2nd forest(λAS)

CO2 emission by landuse change㻯㻻㻞㻌㼑㼙㼕㼟㼟㼕㼛㼚㻌㼇㼀㼓㻯㻛㼥㼞㼉㻝㻠㻜㻜㻝㻞㻜㻜㻢㼃㻌㼟㼠㼍㼎㼕㼘㼕㼦㼑㻝㻜㻜㻜㻾㼑㼒㼑㼞㼑㼚㼏㼑

Assessing carbon cycle㻤㻜㻜㻢㻜㻜㻠㻜㻜㻞㻜㻜㻜㻞㻜㻜㻜

㻞㻜㻞㻜㻞㻜㻠㻜

㻞㻜㻢㻜㼅㼑㼍㼞㻞㻜㻤㻜㻞㻝㻜㻜

ForestHarvesting(λss)

AIM linked with crop model
Climate model
Socioeconomiccondition(SSP1-3)• population• GDP• Consumer
preference
Year: 2005-2050
World17regions

Climate condition(RCP2.6/4.5/6.0/8.5/NoCC)

Crop model

Estimating crop yield inevery 2.5’ grid in the worldtaking in to accountphysical condition such as
climate and soil

Change incrop yield

Global CGE model

M-GAEZ

Model

Climatechangeimpact

Energy & mitigation cost
Agriculture & food
• Energy supply &• Food supply &demand
demandLand use• Bio-crop production• Population at risk
• Carbon priceof hunger• Income loss

Exogenous
variables
Endogenousvariables

28Building a community of practice and otherdevelopments

29Building a community of practice
The Integrated Assessment Modeling
Consortium (IAMC) is an organization ofscientific research organizations that pursues
scientific understanding of issues associatedwith integrated assessment modeling andanalysis. The IAMC has three core missions.
The IAMC facilitates and fosters the development ofintegrated assessment models (IAMs).
The IAMC promotes, facilitates and helps to coordinate
interactions between IAMC members and members ofother scientific research communities studying climatechange such as the Climate Modeling (CM), theImpact, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (IAV), and thetechnology and engineering communities.
The IAMC provides a point of contact with otherinstitutions and organizations that use the science
results of the IAM community, such as the IPCC.
Meets annually to discuss future research priorities,
standard, and interactions with the larger world.
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The challenges
Multiplicity of scales—temporal and spatial
Complexity of systems
Multiplicity of data sources—inconsistency between definitions of thesame phenomenon

Lack of data sources
Computational capacity—particularly for iESM and Regional IAMs
Model validation, quality assurance
Uncertainty quantification
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DISCUSSION
32