The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP)

IPCC's task is to assess scientific information relevant to:Human-induced climate change,

The impacts of human-induced climate change,Options for adaptation and mitigation.

The IPCC published its first assessment report in 1990, a second assessment report (SAR) in 1995,

and a third assessment report (TAR) in 2001. A fourth assessment report (AR4) was released in 2007

and a fifth is due to be issued in 2014.

Java Climate Model

IPCC collects information from different climate models to do a prediction about the future climate.

The Java Climate Model, JCM, is an initiative to let the general public test and interact with these models.

JCM can be found at http://jcm.climatemodel.info/

JCM can be downloaded or be used online.

In this exercise we will use JCM from March 2004. This version is often used for teaching.

The next 10 slides gives an introduction to how to use JCM

Some exercises are found in the last slide

Use reset when things are mixed up

Use layout to change the number of windows

Don't use these buttons

We will use these two

The four default windows show:

The CO2 emissionsThe atmospheric CO2 concentration

The global temperature changeThe regional temperature change

You can chose to see the effect of one of IPCC's scenarios by clicking the upper alternative under the mitigation button and thenchose the wanted scenario under the SRES button

You can skip the different scenarios and try to do something aboutthe global warming problem yourself by choosing to mitigate one parameterunder the mitigation button. A moveable cross will then appear in the window showing this parameter.

When an alternative is choosen (as SRES below) you can read aboutthe alternative in the window to the left of the figures. In the case belowyou can read about the different scenarios.

If you want to study one parameter in more detail you can click layout andchose 1-plot. Then use the plot button to show the wanted parameter (in this case: sea level rise)

To understand the shortwords for the colors in the plot you can move the mouse overthe colors next to the shortwords to see an explanation.Green is for example for Greenland in the plot below

In the figure below layout is used to show 2-plot and the plot buttons are usedto view the shown parameters

In the regional climate map the difference in temperature between two years is shownThe two years are chosen by moving the blue (starting year) and the green (ending year)arrows. By moving the red double arrow you can change the climate sensitivity (theglobal change in temperature if the atmospheric CO2 content is doubled) from the default 3 C to another value.

In this figure the alternative 1-plot is used. The view button is used to show the map in Lat, LongThe regset button is used tho show 50 different regions. The month button is used to choseJanuary. The quantity button is used to show average temperature. The starting and endingyears was chosen in the temperature plot (see the previous slide).By moving the mouse you can see the temperature change between the ending year (2100)and the starting year (1990) for the actual place and the chosen month (2.9 C in Luxembourg)

Some JCM exercises:

1; Explain the different IPCC scenarios2; Choose the scenario you believe is the most realistic3; Investigate between 1990 and 2100:

A; Which areas of the earth will have the highest temperature increase?B; The lowest? Try to explain your results.C; Will land or sea experience the highest temperature increase? Why?D; Will the temperature difference between summer and winter in your country

increase or decrease? Globally?E; Which regions will have the highest precipation increase? Decrease?F; What will the sea level rise be? Explain the different reasons for the

sea level rise.G; Taken A-F together, which areas will be hard to live in 2100?

4; Choose to mitigate the CO2 emissions in a dramatic but still reasonable wayHow will the future then be? Can we avoid a global warming catastrophy?

Some exercises without JCM:

4; How much will the sea level rise if the glacier on Greenland melts?5; How big land area has to be planted with trees if these trees in full grown size

are supposed to absorb the 100 ppm of CO2 that human kind have releasedsince 1900?