What scenarios were used by the regional and sectoral teams?
The Synthesis Team developed a strategy for the regional and sectoral teams to use scenarios that assisted with some common formats that could be more easily synthesized. For climate scenarios, the Synthesis Team focused on three components: (1) historical information (a historical climatology of the U.S. covering the 20th century to examine trends); (2) General Circulation Model projections (primary tool was the Canadian Climate Model run in transient mode to 2100, assuming a 1% per year increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, with and without aerosols); and (3) Flexible, “what if” component where regions developed their own scenarios to understand the sensitivity of systems. For socioeconomic scenarios, the Synthesis Team developed a framework which combined assumptions about the regional economy with assumptions about the degree to which the sector was stressed. Hadley Centre and Max-Planck General Circulation Model runs also were available.
