Figure 3-1 (two parts):
The different socio-economic assumptions underlying the SRES
scenarios result in different levels of future emissions of greenhouse gases and
aerosols. These emissions in turn change the concentration of these gases
and aerosols in the atmosphere, leading to changed radiative forcing of the climate
system. Radiative forcing due to the SRES
scenarios results in projected increases in temperature and sea level, which in
turn will cause impacts. The SRES
scenarios do not include additional climate initiatives and no probabilities of
occurrence are assigned. Because the SRES
scenarios had only been available for a very short time prior to production of
the TAR, the impacts assessments here use climate model results which tend to
be based on equilibrium climate change scenarios (e.g., 2xCO2 ), a
relatively small number of experiments using a 1% per year CO2 increase
transient scenario, or the scenarios used in the Second Assessment Report (i.e.,
the IS92 series). Impacts in turn can affect socio-economic development paths
through, for example, adaptation and mitigation. The highlighted boxes along the
top of the figure illustrate how the various aspects relate to the integrated
assessment framework for considering climate change (see Figure
1-1).
