Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois

Two major uncertainties when considering future climate change are the rates of emissions of greenhouse gases and the atmospheric response to these emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has proposed several emission "scenarios" spanning a range of possibilities.

CO2 forcing	CH4 forcing

These side-by-side animations show the Arctic surface air temperature change projected by a general circulation model (GCM) under two projected greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The left (SRESB1) projects atmospheric greenhouse gases will continue through the first part of the 21st-century followed by a rapid decrease in greenhouse gas concentrations when reduction policies and attitudes are enacted near the middle of the century. The right (SRESA2) scenario is the so called "business-as-usual" scenario where greenhouse gas concentrations are allowed to increase unabated throughout the 21st- century.

Together, these animations show the range of Arctic warming responses to potential greenhouse gas emission scenarios.

Output from additional global climate models are available in the left-column menu.