Science and Research Themes

Current research themes include:

Understanding historical radiative forcing and Earth system change to increase confidence in future projections.

Analysing and understanding future Earth system change and its socio-economic impacts, with specific focus on:

• Near-Term Climate Forcers (NTCFs, e.g. methane, tropospheric ozone, aerosols and aerosol precursors) and their potential for mitigation of future climate change and air quality.
• Carbon cycle feedbacks and their role in realizing climate mitigation targets.
• Human and natural land use and its potential for climate change mitigation
• The risk of rapid, potentially irreversible change in key Earth system phenomena.
• The reversibility of climate change, including rapid change events, should warming targets be exceeded and returned to at a later date. So-called overshoot scenarios.
• The societal and environmental impacts of global change, following a range of mitigation and overshoot scenarios.