chapter - Atmospheric and Oceanic Science

Climate scenarios
B2: Assumes a world with emphasis on local solutions to economic, social
and environmental sustainability. The world remains heterogeneous with less rapid
and more diverse technological change, but with strong emphasis on local initiatives
and social innovations in order to find local rather than global solutions. These
solutions consider environment as a main concern.
The way that these socio-economic scenarios are considered in the GCM simulations
is through the emission scenarios of each one of the gases, which are converted
to concentration scenarios according the life times of these gases in the
atmosphere. Figure 12.2a shows the carbon global emissions corresponding to four
different scenarios for the period 2000-2100 and figure 12.2b shows the corresponding
carbon dioxide concentrations.
156
a)
b)
Fig. 12.2.
Global emissions of
carbon for four
different scenarios
(a) and concentrations
of carbon dioxide
(b) for the period
2000-2100.
[IPCC, 2001]