On March 15th, the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA), a CPO RISA team, published new guidance developed with and for practitioners in the region to increase the usability of climate information needed in adaptation planning. “A Practitioner’s Guide to Climate Model Scenarios” is written for those already using or wanting to use future climate information in their work, but who are not familiar with the underlying assumptions and choices surrounding climate data. The choice of representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) are critical to using climate projections to make decisions, however, where these scenarios come from and what they mean is complex but necessary to understand.
In the guide, GLISA introduces the climate model scenarios that are used to “drive” climate models forward in time. These scenarios are a combination of socioeconomic and climate forcing pathways. GLISA summarizes differences between the scenarios for the Great Lakes region to show users how their choice of model scenario affects future temperature and precipitation projections.
