
116 Engineering Response to Climate Change
3.4 GCAM Results: Climate System and Mitigation Effort
In the absence of mitigation policy, end-of-the-century radiative forcing in our
six reference scenarios varies between 8.8 Wm
−2
and 5.1 Wm
−2
(Figure3.11).
Note that one of the six scenarios presents a radiative forcing level higher than
the highest RCP, 8.5 Wm
−2
. Although the higher population scenarios tend to
have higher levels of the radiative forcing, POP9/MDG+ (Consumerism) still
presents higher radiative forcing than POP14/MDG+ (Social Conservatism)
because of the differences in technology portfolios that are deployed in the
energy sector ...