EGUsphere EGUsphere EGUsphere EGUsphere Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/egusphere-2024-3765 The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP7 (ScenarioMIP-CMIP7)   van Vuuren Detlef https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0398-2831 1 2 O'Neill Brian 3 Tebaldi Claudia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9233-8903 3 Chini Louise https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9070-3505 4 Friedlingstein Pierre https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3309-4739 5 6 Hasegawa Tomoko https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2456-5789 7 8 Riahi Keywan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7193-3498 9 Sanderson Benjamin https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8635-4624 10 Govindasamy Bala https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3079-0600 11 Bauer Nico 12 Eyring Veronika https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6887-4885 13 14 Fall Cheikh 15 Frieler Katja 12 16 Gidden Matthew https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0687-414X 3 9 Gohar Laila 17 Jones Andrew https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1913-7870 18 19 King Andrew https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9006-5745 20 Knutti Reto https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8303-6700 21 Kriegler Elmar 12 22 Lawrence Peter 23 Lennard Chris https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6085-0320 24 Lowe Jason 17 Mathison Camila https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6269-4605 17 Mehmood Shahbaz 25 Prado Luciana 26 Zhang Qiang 27 Rose Steven 28 Ruane Alexander https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5582-9217 29 Schleussner Carl-Friederich https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8471-848X 9 30 Seferian Roland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2571-2114 31 Sillmann Jana https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0219-5345 10 32 Smith Chris https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0599-4633 33 9 Sörensson Anna 34 35 36 Panickal Swapna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7441-7496 37 Tachiiri Kaoru 38 Vaughan Naomi 39 Vishwanathan Saritha 8 40 Yokohata Tokuta https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7346-7988 41 Ziehn Tilo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9873-9775 42 PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Bezuidenhoutseweg 30, The Hague, the Netherlands Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Shiga, 525-8577, Japan Department of Environmental Engineering, Kyoto University (Katsura campus), Kyoto, Japan International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Energy, Climate and Environment Program (ECE), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria CICERO, Oslo, Norway Center for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru – 560 012, Karnataka, India Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), Bremen, Germany Laboratoire de Physique de l'Atmosphère et de l'Océan Siméon Fongang (LPAOSF), École Supérieure Polytechnique (ESP), Univ. Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal University of Potsdam, Institute for Environmental Science and Geography, Potsdam, Germany Met Office · Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA Energy and Resources Group, University of CA, Berkeley; Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather and School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland University of Potsdam, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Potsdam, Germany National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA Climate System Analysis Group, University of Cape Town, South Africa Global Climate-Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC), Ministry of Climate Change & Environmental Coordination (MoCC&EC), Govt. of Pakistan, Islamabad - 44000, Pakistan Faculty of Oceanography, Department of Physical Oceanography and Meteorology, Rio de Janeiro State University, Campus Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, China Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Research, EPRI, USA National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA 10709 Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) and the Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany CNRM, Université de Toulouse, Météo-France/CNRS, Toulouse, France University of Hamburg, Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Risks, Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences, Germany Department of Water and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Buenos Aires, Argentina CONICET ‒ Universidad de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera (CIMA). Buenos Aires, Argentina Instituto Franco-Argentino de Estudios sobre el Clima y sus Impactos (IFAECI) – IRL 3351 – CNRS-CONICET-IRD-UBA. Buenos Aires, Argentina Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, India Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama, Japan Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan CSIRO - Climate Science Centre, Australia 30 01 2025 2025 1 38 Copyright: © 2025 Detlef van Vuuren et al. 2025 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2024-3765/ The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2024-3765/egusphere-2024-3765.pdf

Scenarios represent a critical tool in climate change analysis, enabling the exploration of future evolution of the climate system, climate impacts, and the human system (including mitigation and adaptation actions). This paper describes the scenario framework for ScenarioMIP as part of CMIP7. The design process, initiated in June 2023, has involved various rounds of interaction with the research community and user groups at large. The proposal covers a set of scenarios exploring high levels of climate change (to explore high-end climate risks), medium levels of climate change (anchored to current policy action), and low levels of climate change (aligned with current international agreements). These scenarios follow very different trajectories in terms of emissions, with some likely to experience peaks and subsequent declines in greenhouse gas concentrations. An important innovation is that most scenarios are intended to be run, if possible, in emission-driven mode, providing a better representation of the earth system uncertainty space. The proposal also includes plans for long-term extensions (up to 2500 AD) to study slow climate change-related processes, and (ir)reversibility. This proposal forms the basis for further implementation of the framework in terms of the derivation of climate forcing pathways for use by earth system models and additional variants for adaptation and mitigation studies.