Climate model emulation in an integrated assessment framework: a case study for mitigation policies in the electricity sector

Foley, A. M.; Holden, P. B.; Edwards, N. R.; Mercure, J.-F.; Salas, P.; Pollitt, H.; Chewpreecha, U.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-119-2016

Articles | Volume 7, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-119-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Social dynamics and planetary boundaries in Earth system...

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-119-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 1

Research article

|

15 Feb 2016

Research article |

| 15 Feb 2016

Climate model emulation in an integrated assessment framework: a case study for mitigation policies in the electricity sector

A. M. Foley, P. B. Holden, N. R. Edwards, J.-F. Mercure, P. Salas, H. Pollitt, and U. Chewpreecha

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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC C501: 'Referee report', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Aug 2015
RC C539: 'Review of esd-2015-35', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Sep 2015
AC C854: 'Author response', Aideen Foley, 24 Nov 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Aideen Foley on behalf of the Authors (10 Dec 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (30 Dec 2015) by James Dyke

Dear Dr Foley

Thank you for your reply to the reviewer’s comments and revision of your manuscript. I am satisfied that you have addressed all the reviewer’s points except the following two:

Reviewer 1 comment:
“Page 1285 lines 6-7 and 14-16 Justify the choice of values for E1, E2 and E3 – how do I go from Moss et all or Van Vuuren et al. to derive these? Similarly for R1, R2, R3. Page 1287 lines 1-9. Link this to the IPCC AR5 treatment of uncertainty in the terrestrial carbon sink, as Holden et al 2013a presumably is not based on IPCC AR5?”

Your response: “The motivation for these ranges has been expanded on, as below:
 ‘The E1 and R1 coefficients define the 2100 CO2 emissions and non-CO2 radiative forcing respectively. The ranges for these coefficients have been chosen to encompass (and exceed) the ranges of 2100 forcing in Moss et al (2010) ; The range of input values for the training dataset needs to be wide in order to avoid extrapolation when using the resulting emulator. The maximum E1 = 30 gives 2100 CO2 emissions of E0+E1=39.166GTC, which compares to RCP8.5 emissions of 28.817GTC. Maximum radiative forcing of R0+R1=10.619Wm-2 was allowed to greatly exceed RCP estimates (maximum 1.796Wm-2) in order to allow the potential application of the emulator to extreme non-CO2 forcing scenarios.’”  
What would be the motivation to explore such high radiative forcing scenarios? Is there any policy interest in such scenarios?

Reviewer 2 comment:
“M1285:1:16. If I apply Equation (3) with the stated parameters I generate some very strange time profiles of forcing... Is Equation (3) wrong (I note in Holden and Edwards that the 0.5 embraces R1, R2 and R3 rather than just R1 here)? Not being a Chebyshev expert, I was also confused by the R3 parameter; lists I see in text books etc have 4x**3 - 3x, but perhaps this is what is meant by “modified” here?”

Your response:  “There was an error in transcribing this equation. As the reviewer suggests, the 0.5 should embrace R1, R2 and R3. The modified Chebyshev parameters are arrived at through linear decomposition of the first three Chebyshev polynomials. This has been made explicit.”

I can see no revision of the text in the light of this response. Can you tell me where the text has been changed please.

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AR by Aideen Foley on behalf of the Authors (07 Jan 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (12 Jan 2016) by James Dyke

AR by Aideen Foley on behalf of the Authors (20 Jan 2016)

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Short summary

We introduce GENIEem-PLASIM-ENTSem (GPem), a climate-carbon cycle emulator, showing how model emulation can be used in integrated assessment modelling to resolve regional climate impacts and systematically capture uncertainty. In a case study, we couple GPem to FTT:Power-E3MG, a non-equilibrium economic model with technology diffusion. We find that when the electricity sector is decarbonised by 90 %, further emissions reductions must be achieved in other sectors to avoid dangerous climate change.