Abstract for: Using C-ROADS to Support Analysis of International Climate Change Proposals

We report the creation and initial use of the Climate-Rapid Overview And Decision Support Simulator (C-ROADS), a simple, fast, user-friendly simulation of climate change that conforms with accepted climate science while allowing decision makers to discover through interactive exploration the range of greenhouse gas emissions trajectories sufficient to achieve widely accepted goals for climate stabilization such as stabilizing CO2 levels at 350-450 parts per million (ppm) or limiting temperature increase to no more than 2 deg. Centigrade over pre-industrial temperatures. Our results show that these proposals--even if fully implemented--would be far from sufficient to meet the goals of stabilizing atmospheric CO2 levels at or below 450 ppm (reaching ~ 730 ppm by 2100) or limiting warming to 2 deg. C over pre-industrial temperatures (reaching ~4 deg. C by 2100).