Interlinking of climate scenarios with other scenarios from the ecological and social area

The integration of climate scenarios with other models for social and environmental development is a precondition for a reliable estimate of the future development of coupled human-environment systems under conditions of climate change. The project now researched such scenarios underlying, related primarily to Germany (regional) climate models, as well as other environmental and socio-economic models. These are compared with regard to linking capabilities and existing links and evaluated.

The parallel comparative examination of the studies makes clear that in all three spheres (climate, ecology, economy) there exist different model concepts and types. With the coupling of climate models with ecological and/or socioeconomic models considerable model-technical and methodological problems appear. Dynamic back couplings seem desirable in integrated whole models, but they are so far hardly empirically well-founded feasable. Beginning points were worked out by concrete description of the opportunities and the problems to be overcome identify starting points for further coupling of climate scenarios with ecological and socio-economic scenarios.