Tackling climate change is a major challenge. To guide decisions, scientists have developed tools called integrated assessment models (IAMs). IAMs simplify complex physical and social systems, focusing on the interactions between the economy, technology, society, land use, agriculture, and climate. They provide policy-relevant insights into climate change and sustainable development by quantifying key processes within human and Earth systems and how they interact.
Through the EU project WorldTrans, MET Norway is participating in the development of a new IAM (FRIDA) that, unlike traditional IAMs, focuses on interactions and feedback within and between nature and human societies. At this point in the process, FRIDA is ready for scientific analysis. Therefore, we invite students to write their master theses on analysis of FRIDA, including comparisons with other IAMs and Earth System Models. If successful, such theses will contribute to the portfolio of papers that the IPCC uses in their 7th Assessment Report.
Numerous potential research questions can be explored based on the candidate's background and specific interests.
Research question 1:
How reversible is the climate in response to carbon removal?
IAMs integrate society, economy, and climate, but their climate modules are often simpler compared to the more complex Earth System Models (ESMs) used in projects like the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and UN Assessment Reports. A key research question is whether the complexity of climate change captured by an ESM can also be represented in an IAM.
Hypothesis:
The climate response to reduced emissions and carbon capture will differ between a complex climate model and an integrated assessment model, with the complex model showing less reversibility due to ocean dynamics.
Method:
Explore how climate responds to negative emissions in two models of differing complexity (i.e. NorESM and FRIDA) when subjected to the same forcing scenarios.
Research question 2:
Are there barriers and possibilities implicit in the human-climate system that make some mitigation strategies (or sets of strategies) more useful than they would seem from a linear perspective?
To mitigate climate change is conceptually an easy problem: remove the emissions of gases and particles that cause the change, and voila: the problem is gone. We know much about what are the main sources of emissions (see for instance https://climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/what-climate-change-mitigation-and-why-it-urgent) However, many barriers complicate the implementation of mitigation efforts. Usually, these efforts are studied one by one, but in FRIDA we model the system, with feedback, time delays and interactions.
Hypothesis:
Some unforeseen possibilities and barriers emerge when we study the full system rather than the parts
Method:
Using a set of analysis methods to investigate the structure of FRIDA, the candidate will gain insight into the workings of the model and test the hypothesis.
Other possible research questions:
- What are the most important feedback mechanisms that affect the climate sector?
- How important are the various barriers to transformation a) of climate, b) of climate and going above existence minimum for all, c) of climate and inequality
- Which assumptions of neoclassical macroeconomic theory hold in FRIDA?
- (How) can one bring everyone in the world above existential minimum without destroying resources/nature/climate?
- What creates inequality? (hypothesis from V. Norman: market imperfections)
