1. 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.
2. 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
3. Use layout to change the number of windows We will use these two
Don't use these buttons
Use reset when things are mixed up
4. The four default windows show:
The atmospheric CO2 concentration
The CO2 emissions
The regional temperature change The global temperature change
5. You can chose to see the effect of one of IPCC's scenarios by
clicking the upper alternative under the mitigation button and then
chose the wanted scenario under the SRES button
6. You can skip the different scenarios and try to do something about
the global warming problem yourself by choosing to mitigate one parameter
under the mitigation button. A moveable cross will then appear in the
window showing this parameter.
7. When an alternative is choosen (as SRES below) you can read about
the alternative in the window to the left of the figures. In the case below
you can read about the different scenarios.
8. If you want to study one parameter in more detail you can click layout and
chose 1-plot. Then use the plot button to show the wanted parameter
(in this case: sea level rise)
9. To understand the shortwords for the colors in the plot you can move the mouse over
the colors next to the shortwords to see an explanation.
Green is for example for Greenland in the plot below
10. In the figure below layout is used to show 2-plot and the plot buttons are used
to view the shown parameters
11. In the regional climate map the difference in temperature between two years is shown
The 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 (the
global change in temperature if the atmospheric CO2 content is doubled)
from the default 3 C to another value.
12. In this figure the alternative 1-plot is used. The view button is used to show the map in Lat, Long
The regset button is used tho show 50 different regions. The month button is used to chose
January. The quantity button is used to show average temperature. The starting and ending
years 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)
13. Some JCM exercises:
1; Explain the different IPCC scenarios
2; Choose the scenario you believe is the most realistic
3; 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 way
How 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 released
since 1900?
