Canberra

Seminar Abstract

Monday 5 July 2010
10.30am (AEST time)
CSIRO Pye Laboratory, Canberra

Allison Thomson

Land use modeling in the GCAM integrated assessment model

The Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) is a global integrated assessment model that projects changes in greenhouse gas emissions from energy and land use over the 21st Century. The early versions of the model primarily focused on energy systems and emissions in a global economic framework; the model was modified over time to include representations of land use in order to model production of bioenergy crops as well as emissions from land use change. More recent developments have enabled the simulation of agricultural crop production, livestock production, forestry and associated emissions within the global economic framework. As a result, GCAM can simulate endogenously the inclusion of terrestrial carbon in a global policy that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Results from such studies have provided new insights into the role of bioenergy and land use change in climate mitigation.

This seminar will focus on the current state of agricultural and land use modeling in GCAM, which was updated for use in generating one of the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios for use in CMIP5 and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. The RCPs are the first scenario exercise to include transfer of land use transitions as well as global emissions from integrated assessment models to climate models, necessitating downscaling and harmonization to common base year land cover characteristics. Applications of the GCAM to study potential land use change due to terrestrial carbon valuation policies and assumptions on the future evolution of agricultural productivity increases will be discussed. Finally, an overview of recent model development and plans, including the development of an integrated Earth System Model (iESM) will be presented.

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Location:
CSIRO = Pye Laboratory, Black Mountain, Canberra

Last updated 24/06/10