Hedging Our Bet on Forest Permanence for the Economic Viability of Climate Targets – Model Output and Results

Contact: michael.windisch@env.ethz.ch

Contents

This repository contains model output from the REMIND and/or MAgPIE models used in the assessment for the manuscript
"Hedging Our Bet on Forest Permanence for the Economic Viability of Climate Targets".

The data is provided in Model Intercomparison Format (.mif) and includes the following attributes:

1. Model
2. Scenario
3. Region
4. Variable
5. Unit
6. Period
7. Value

.mif Files

The .mif (Model Intercomparison Format) is a structured text format. The files in this repository are semicolon-separated (CSV-like), with headers defining key attributes. They can be processed using any software that supports delimited text, including R and Python.

For IAM-specific analysis, tailored packages like quitte (https://github.com/pik-piam/quitte) in R provide convenient tools for handling .mif files.

Data Structure

The model output is organized into folders based on experimental setups, as follows:

1. Control Runs (control) – Simulations without forest carbon loss.
2. 1.5°C and 2°C Experiments (1.5degC, 2degC) – Scenarios meeting climate targets despite forest carbon loss, with disturbance rates of:
   • 0.2% (FCL-002)
   • 0.4% (FCL-004)
   • 0.8% (FCL-008)
   • 1.6% (FCL-016)
3. Sensitivity Experiments (sensitivity), further divided into:
   • GCM – Varying Global Circulation Model (GCM) inputs
   • SSP – Varying Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) assumptions

File Naming Convention

Each file follows the naming pattern:

{ssp}-{climate goal}-FCL-{response type}-{response time}-{gcm}.mif

• Control scenarios only include {ssp} and {climate goal} since they do not experience forest carbon loss or a response to it.
• Sensitivity analyses include variations in {gcm}.