DOI: 10.1594/wdcc/ethr8
title: IPCC Working Group I AR5 snapshot: The rcp85 experiment

description: Project: IPCC Data Distribution Centre : Assessment Report Five data sets - The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information, relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and option for adaption and migration. Projection of future trends for a number of key variables are provided through this section of the DDC (http://www.ipcc-data.org/sim/gcm_monthly/AR5/ ). Based on the interests and needs of model developers and data users, global scenarios for two time periods where developed: - near-term scenarios that cover the period to about 2035; and - long-term scenarios that cover the period to 2100 and, in a more stylized way, the period to 2300. Four RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways: RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5) were constructed from long-term scenarios available in the published literature. These scenarios include time paths for emissions and concentrations of the full suite of greenhouse gases and aerosols and chemically active gases, as well as land use/land cover. They describe alternative technological, socioeconomic, and policy futures including both reference (without explicit climate policy intervention) and climate policy scenarios. The data represent a subset of data sets from the distributed CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) data archive: http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5, which was collected by the ETH Zurich in support of the IPCC WG 1 authors. Data are available in NetCDF/CF format (http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/). Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC: IPCC, 2013: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1535 pp, doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415324. Summary: rcp85 is an experiment of the CMIP5 - Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 ( https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/mips/cmip5 ). CMIP5 is meant to provide a framework for coordinated climate change experiments for the next five years and thus includes simulations for assessment in the IPCC AR5. This subset of the CMIP5 additional historical data were collected by ETH Zurich until 15th March 2013 in support of IPCC AR5 Working Group 1 ( http://wiki.c2sm.ethz.ch/COSMO/CMIP5 ). These data are part of the IPCC-DDC AR5. rcp85 (4.2 RCP8.5) - Version 2: Future projection (2006-2100) forced by RCP8.5. RCP8.5 is a representative concentration pathway which approximately results in a radiative forcing of 8.5 W m-2 at year 2100, relative to pre-industrial conditions. RCPs are time-dependent, consistent projections of emissions and concentrations of radiatively active gases and particles. Experiment design: https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/mips/cmip5/experiment_design.html List of output variables: https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/mips/cmip5/datadescription.html Output: time series per variable in model grid spatial resolution in netCDF format Earth System model and the simulation information: CIM repository Data are structured and entry names are set according to the ETH Zurich Archive layout: "experiment/MIP table/variable/model/ensemble member/CMOR filename.nc"