Integrated assessment model diagnostics: key indicators and model evolution

Abstract

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) form a prime tool in informing climate mitigation strategies. Diagnostic indicators that allow to compare these models can help to describe and explain differences in model projections. This also increases transparency and comparability. Earlier, the IAM community has developed an approach to diagnose models (Kriegler et al., 2015). Here we build on this, by proposing a selected set of well-defined indicators as a community standard, similar to metrics used for other modeling communities such as climate models. These indicators are the relative abatement index (RAI), emission reduction type index (ERT), inertia timescale (IT), fossil fuel reduction (FFR), transformation index (TI) and cost per abatement value (CAV). We apply the approach to 17 IAMs, including both older version as well as their latest versions, as applied in the IPCC 6th Assessment Report (AR6). The study shows that the approach can be easily applied and allows for comparison of model versions in time. Moreover, we demonstrate that this comparison helps to link model behavior to model characteristics and assumptions. We show that together, the set of six indicators can provide an useful indication of the main traits of the model and can roughly indicate the general model behavior. The results also show that there is often a considerable spread across the models. Interestingly, the diagnostic values often change for different model versions, but there does not seem to be a distinct trend across the different models.