CMIP6 is the coordinated climate-model framework behind much of modern projection work, while SSPs define alternative socioeconomic pathways and ScenarioMIP links those pathways to model experiments. A key distinction is that a model is not a scenario, and downscaling adds local detail without removing uncertainty or model spread (Eyring et al., 2016; O’Neill et al., 2016; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2021). For decision-makers, this framing keeps asset-level climate analysis tied to multiple lines of evidence rather than false precision (IPCC, 2021).
References
- Eyring, V., Bony, S., Meehl, G. A., Senior, C. A., Stevens, B., Stouffer, R. J., & Taylor, K. E. (2016). Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization. Geoscientific Model Development, 9, 1937-1958. doi:10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016.
- O’Neill, B. C., Tebaldi, C., van Vuuren, D. P., Eyring, V., Friedlingstein, P., Hurtt, G., Knutti, R., Kriegler, E., Lamarque, J.-F., Lowe, J., Meehl, G. A., Moss, R., Riahi, K., & Sanderson, B. M. (2016). The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6. Geoscientific Model Development, 9, 3461-3482. doi:10.5194/gmd-9-3461-2016.
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2021). Chapter 10: Linking global to regional climate change. In Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Cambridge University Press.