Scenario Evaluation Criteria
Background
IAMs are computational models that produce scenarios of economy, energy system, land use, and greenhouse-gas emissions developments over time, across regions, and under different policy assumptions. Large ensembles of such scenarios by multiple model families underpin major scientific assessments such as the IPCC reports.
Scenarios are often evaluated in the process of producing new scenarios or when in the process of collecting and assess existing scenario ensembles. Specifically, scenarios are often checked against empirical observations, near-term projections, and sustainability targets to identify scenarios that are outdated, internally inconsistent, technically infeasible, or ecologically undesirable. This package provides a versioned, machine-readable set of such evaluation criteria so that different research groups can apply the same standards.
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Summary
Look at the summary page of the criteria definitions.
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Components
Look at the individual components defining the criteria.
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Tutorials
Look at R and Python tutorials for loading and applying the criteria.
Citation
Please cite as:
Verpoort, P. C., Hasegawa, T., Weigmann, P., Huppmann, D., Scheifinger, K., & Luderer, G. (2026). Scenario Evaluation Criteria (Version 0.1.0) [Computer software]. https://github.com/IAMconsortium/scenario-evaluation-criteria/
License
All data and code are published under the MIT licence.
Acknowledgments
This collection of scenario evaluation criteria was curated as part of the Scenario Compass Initiative (SCI). Some of the reference data was previously derived in the PRISMA project.
SCI is supported financially by the Bezos Earth Fund. PRISMA has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101081604 (PRISMA).
