https://github.com/bje-/gcam-core

GCAM -- The Global Change Analysis Model

https://github.com/bje-/gcam-core

Repository

GCAM -- The Global Change Analysis Model

https://github.com/bje-/gcam-core/blob/master/

# Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM)

The Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) of the Pacific 
Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is the home and primary 
development institution for GCAM, a multisector tool for exploring 
consequences of and responses to global change. Climate change is a
global issue that impacts all regions of the world and all sectors of 
the global economy. Multisector tools such as GCAM capture these 
interconnected impacts in an economic framework in order to explore 
interactions between regions and sectors.

GCAM has been developed at PNNL for over 20 years and is now a freely
available community model and documented online (See below). The team
at JGCRI is comprised of economists, engineers, energy experts, forest
ecologists, agricultural scientists, and climate system scientists who
develop the model and apply it to a range of science and policy
questions and work closely with Earth system and ecosystem modelers to
integrate the human decision components of GCAM into their analyses.

## Model Overview

GCAM is a dynamic-recursive model with technology-rich representations
of the economy, energy sector, land use and water linked to a climate
model that can be used to explore climate change mitigation policies
including carbon taxes, carbon trading, regulations and accelerated
deployment of energy technology. Regional population and labor
productivity growth assumptions drive the energy and land-use systems
employing numerous technology options to produce, transform, and
provide energy services as well as to produce agriculture and forest
products, and to determine land use and land cover. Using a run period
extending from 1990  2100 at 5 year intervals, GCAM has been used to
explore the potential role of emerging energy supply technologies and
the greenhouse gas consequences of specific policy measures or energy
technology adoption including; CO2 capture and storage, bioenergy,
hydrogen systems, nuclear energy, renewable energy technology, and
energy use technology in buildings, industry and the transportation
sectors. GCAM is an Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)-class
model. This means it can be used to simulate scenarios, policies, and
emission targets from various sources including the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Output includes projections of future
energy supply and demand and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions,
radiative forcing and climate effects of 16 greenhouse gases, aerosols
and short-lived species at 0.50.5 degree resolution, contingent on
assumptions about future population, economy, technology, and climate
mitigation policy.

## Community guidelines for peer-reviewed journal articles using GCAM

This section outlines some suggested language which the GCAM user community 
can employ to describe GCAM in papers in peer-reviewed journal articles 
using GCAM or versions of GCAM. GCAM is under continuous development. The 
suggested language for the opening paragraphs of a methodology or 
introduction section of a paper describing GCAM is as follows:

"The Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM) is a multisector model developed and maintained at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratorys Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI, 2023) _\_. GCAM is an open-source community model. In this study, we use GCAM v NN. The documentation of the model is available at the GCAM documentation page ([http://jgcri.github.io/gcam-doc](http://jgcri.github.io/gcam-doc)) and the description below is a summary. GCAM includes representations of: economy, energy, agriculture, and water supply in 32 geopolitical regions across the globe; their GHG and air pollutant emissions and global GHG concentrations, radiative forcing, and temperature change; and the associated land allocation, water use, and agriculture production across 384 land sub-regions and 235 water basins.  _\_. The version of GCAM used in this study is available  along with full source code and instructions for use  in a public repository _\_. 

Subsequent paragraphs of the description might expound on particular capabilities, systems, or sectors of focus in the paper. Details in the GCAM documentation page can be used as a reference to develop these paragraphs.

Community users of GCAM might also undertake their own model developments and/or assumptions for papers. It is recommended that these departures from the publicly available version of the model be clearly described. In addition, if these developments are substantial, we suggest making this clear by including an additional phrase (e.g. region name or name of institution) in the name of the model and explicitly calling it out in place of or immediately following the italicized portion in the above paragraphs. For example: _"This study uses a modified version of GCAM/GCAM-USA called GCAM-\/GCAM-USA-\. GCAM-\/GCAM-USA-\ incorporates additional details and modified assumptions from GCAM v NN as described subsequently"_. 

## Documentation

* [GCAM Documentation](http://jgcri.github.io/gcam-doc/)
* [Getting Started with GCAM](http://jgcri.github.io/gcam-doc/user-guide.html)
* [GCAM Community](https://gcims.pnnl.gov/community)
* [GCAM Videos and Tutorial Slides](https://gcims.pnnl.gov/community)
* [GCAM Citation and Co-authorship Guidelines](http://jgcri.github.io/gcam-doc/community-guide.html)

## Selected Publications

Calvin, K., Patel, P., Clarke, L., Asrar, G., Bond-Lamberty, B., Cui, R. Y., Di Vittorio, A., Dorheim, K., Edmonds, J., Hartin, C., Hejazi, M., Horowitz, R., Iyer, G., Kyle, P., Kim, S., Link, R., McJeon, H., Smith, S. J., Snyder, A., Waldhoff, S., and Wise, M.: GCAM v5.1: representing the linkages between energy, water, land, climate, and economic systems, Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 677698, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-677-2019, 2019.

Edmonds, J., and J. Reilly (1985)Global Energy: Assessing the Future (Oxford University Press, New York) pp.317.

Edmonds, J., M. Wise, H. Pitcher, R. Richels, T. Wigley, and C. MacCracken. (1997) An Integrated Assessment of Climate Change and the Accelerated Introduction of Advanced Energy Technologies, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 1, pp. 311-39

Kim, S.H., J. Edmonds, J. Lurz, S. J. Smith, and M. Wise (2006) The ObjECTS Framework for Integrated Assessment: Hybrid Modeling of Transportation  Energy Journal (Special Issue #2) pp 51-80.

[Full list of GCAM publications](http://jgcri.github.io/gcam-doc/references.html)

Owner

GitHub Events