Project description
The role of non-CO2 radiative forcing in climate change
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted through anthropogenic activity. Radiative forcing has been a useful tool in estimating climate impacts due to radiatively induced perturbations. In this context, the EU-funded FOCI project will investigate the role of non-CO2 radiative forcers in climate change, including short-lived GHGs, aerosols and albedo changes. The findings will feed into global Earth system models and regional climate models. The aim is to develop a set of mitigation and adaptation measures that will help inform future climate policy in Europe and beyond.
Objective
Indicated area b)
While overall the global warming with the causes and global processes connected to well mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially CO2, and their impacts on global to continental scales are well understood with a high level of confidence, there are knowledge gaps concerning the impact of many non-CO2 radiative forcers leading to low confidence in the conclusions. This relates mainly to specific anthropogenic and natural precursor emissions of short-lived GHGs and aerosols and their precursors. These gaps and uncertainties also exist in their subsequent effects on atmospheric chemistry and climate, through direct emissions dependent on changes in e.g. agriculture production and technologies based on scenarios for future development as well as feedbacks of global warming on emissions, e.g. permafrost thaw. In addition to the atmospheric radiative forcing (gaseous or aerosols), albedo changes connected to land-use and land-cover can play a role, depending on the adaptation or mitigation measures included in different scenarios.
Thus, FOCI responds to Topic D1-01-01 area b) and its main goal is to assess the impact of key radiative forcers, where and how they arise, the processes of their impact on the climate system, to find and test an efficient implementation of these processes into global Earth System Models (ESMs) and into Regional Climate Models (RCMs), and finally to use the tools developed to investigate mitigation and/or adaptation policies incorporated in selected scenarios of future development targetted at Europe and other regions of the world. We will develop new regionally tuned scenarios based on improved emissions to assess the effects of non-CO2 forcers. Mutual interactions of the results and climate services producers and other end-users will provide feedbacks for the specific scenarios preparation and potential application to support the decision making, including climate policy.
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Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
116 36 Praha 1
Czechia