Scientific Working Group on Data Protocols and Management
A key approach to identifying robust insights from integrated assessment models (IAMs) is model intercomparison projects that typically involve a few to a couple of dozen models. In such comparison projects, data collection and management, model documentation, and transparency have become increasingly important, yet time consuming activities, given the increasing amount of information produced by and complexity of IAMs. This increase in data and complexity is a direct result of integrating more sectors, systems, technologies, and sustainability indicators into the models, as well as increasing regional and temporal resolution.
In 2010 the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) initiated a process to standardize the reporting formats used in model intercomparison projects to reduce the burden on both the modeling teams when exporting model results for a particular study as well as project leaders who analyze scenario data.
In parallel to this activity, an interactive web-database system was developed to automatically handle scenario submissions from modeling teams, building on an earlier database that was developed for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).
In 2016, the IAMC, through projects coordinated by member organizations, developed and launched a coordinated model documentation effort. This effort led to documentation of many IAMs in a consistent format.
In the meantime, a number of community-wide model intercomparison projects, each of which involved several IAM teams, as well as the recently published Fifth Assessment Report of IPCC Working Group III have been using the IAMC data template and the web-based database system.
As a major IAMC activity, a Scenario Explorer which presents an ensemble of quantitative, model-based climate change mitigation pathways underpinning the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) has been published in 2018.
To facilitate sharing of data, tools and other materials with the IAM community and other researchers and analysts, two community sharing services have been established. First, with Zenodo becoming the de-facto standard repository for research data and other material, a dedicated IAMC community for associated data sets has been set up (https://zenodo.org/communities/iamconsortium/). It makes finding IAMC data sets easy and is curated by the IIASA ECE program. Adding your data set to the Zenodo IAMC is easy and can be done during upload of new data or added to existing data sets. When editing your data set, under ‘Communities’ simply search for ‘IAMC’ and select it. The IIASA Zenodo admin is then notified and can accept your request. Second, an IAMC GitHub organization (https://github.com/iamconsortium) allows to share and jointly develop source code of models and tools related to IAM research. GitHub and Zenodo can also be used together to make releases of your source code citable and via the Zenodo IAMC community easily findable by other IAM researchers.
Co-chairs
Members
Katherine Calvin (PNNL), Vassilis Daioglou (PBL), Volker Krey (IIASA), Gunnar Luderer (PIK), Alessio Mastrucci (IIASA), Ken Oshiro (Kyoto University), Jessica Strefler (PIK).
IAMC members that are interested in participating in the work of the SWG should contact the IAMC Secretariat. For other scientific inquiries, please contact the SWG Co-Chairs.