The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has now hosted a cross-sectoral workshop with focus on an important issue: advancing climate impact science for the next cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Reports (AR7), due to be released in 2028.
The event from 5-8 May brought together roughly 300 scientists from different institutes to discuss how future projections of risks from climate change could evolve in the coming decades and how best to integrate adaptation measures.
In one of the central sessions of the workshop, IPCC Working Group II co-chair Bart van den Hurk, Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Panel co-chair Helene Hewitt, principal investigator of the OptimESM project Torben Koenigk, and PIK’s Nico Bauer joined a panel discussion.
“There is a strong need for up-to-date climate change impact research on distributional risks, also taking into account temperature overshoot above 1.5°C”, said Bart van den Hurk. This can only be done based on new CMIP7 climate simulations, and though the timeline will be very tight to deliver the discussion left workshop participants motivated to take on the challenge.
In his keynote, Jeroen Aerts from the Vrije University Amsterdam highlighted the importance of including adaptation measures in future climate impact projections, which was a novel inclusion in the latest ISIMIP3 simulations.
Paula Harrison from the UK Center for Ecology & Hydrology and Damaris Zurell from the Uni Potsdam also gave valuable insights into the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ upcoming Nexus Report and ongoing biodiversity modelling, which is becoming increasingly relevant when projecting future climate risk.
The workshop served as the annual meeting of the climate change impact modelers engaging in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP), and an activity of the Horizon Europe project OptimESM, which aims to develop the next generation of Earth system models. By integrating the two projects, the workshop was able to bring together the Earth system and integrated assessment modeling communities to discuss the best way forward for the next ISIMIP simulation – ISIMIP4 – with a view towards a strong contribution to AR7.
The workshop program and available presentations can be found on the event page.
