RCP6.0 — LLMpedia

RCP6.0
Name	RCP6.0
Type	Representative Concentration Pathway
Radiative forcing	6.0 W/m2 (by 2100)
Year created	2011
Developed by	Various climate modeling groups

Contents

RCP6.0

RCP6.0 is a midrange emissions pathway used in climate research and assessment. It serves as a standardized scenario for comparing projections from integrated assessment models, Earth system models, and climate impacts studies, and has been applied in analyses by groups such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, European Commission, and research centers including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Princeton University. The pathway informs assessments alongside other scenarios used by bodies like the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme, and International Energy Agency.

Overview

RCP6.0 describes a stabilization trajectory that reaches approximately 6.0 watts per square meter of net radiative forcing by 2100. It was developed in the lead-up to the Fifth Assessment Report processes involving modeling teams at institutions such as Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Joint Global Change Research Institute, Met Office Hadley Centre, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. RCP6.0 is used in comparisons with other pathways that feature lower or higher forcing levels, and is frequently cited in studies by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Columbia University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The scenario definition for RCP6.0 originates from integrated assessment models developed by teams at organizations such as the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and the Electric Power Research Institute. It defines emissions trajectories for greenhouse gases and aerosols that yield a stabilization of radiative forcing near 6.0 W/m2 by 2100 without relying on large-scale negative emissions. Scenario pathway documentation was coordinated with modeling contributions from groups including IIASA, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Tsinghua University. The pathway inputs are used by climate model intercomparison projects such as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5.

RCP6.0’s radiative forcing target guides projections of temperature, precipitation, sea level, and extreme events in Earth system models run at centers like NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Institute Pierre-Simon Laplace, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, and CSIRO. Model outputs under this forcing level have been analyzed in assessments by the IPCC, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, National Research Council, and Royal Society. Projections under RCP6.0 typically show global mean surface temperature increases that are intermediate relative to lower forcing pathways used by IPCC AR4 and higher forcing pathways considered by IPCC AR5 authors, with regional climate responses evaluated by researchers at Yale University, University of Oxford, and Australian National University.

RCP6.0 embodies emissions and socioeconomic assumptions coordinated across modeling communities including World Bank Group analysts, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and teams at Stockholm Environment Institute. The pathway encodes assumptions about energy use, land-use change, industrial emissions, and demographic trends informed by studies from United Nations Population Division, International Energy Agency, and McKinsey Global Institute. Scenario descriptions reference sectoral inputs produced by groups like BloombergNEF, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Carbon Capture and Storage Association, and are decomposed by contributors at Princeton University and Cornell University for attribution studies.

Implementation of RCP6.0 in climate models varies across centers such as Met Office, GFDL, MPI-M, and CNRM. Differences arise from treatment of aerosol forcing, carbon cycle feedbacks, ocean heat uptake, and land surface processes, with sensitivity studies performed by teams at NOAA, Berkeley Earth, University of Washington, and Imperial College London. Model intercomparison exercises coordinated through CMIP5 and analyzed by IPCC Working Group I highlighted intermodel spread linked to parametrizations developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, ETH Zurich, and University of Tokyo.

Category:Climate scenarios