A Brief Introduction to BNU-HESM1.0 and Its Earth Surface Temperature Simulations

Integrated assessment models and coupled earth system models both have their limitations in understanding the interactions between human activity and the physical earth system. In this paper, a new human-earth system model, BNU-HESM1.0, constructed by combining the economic and climate damage components of the Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate Change and Economy to the BNU-ESM model, is introduced. The ability of BNU-HESM1.0 in simulating the global CO2 concentration and surface temperature is also evaluated. We find that, compared to observation, BNU-HESM1.0 underestimates the global CO2 concentration and its rising trend during 1965-2005, due to the uncertainty in the economic components. However, the surface temperature simulated by BNU-HESM1.0 is much closer to observation, resulting from the overestimates of surface temperature by the original BNU-ESM model. The uncertainty of BNU-ESM falls within the range of present earth system uncertainty, so it is the economic and climate damage component of BNU-HESM1.0 that needs to be improved through further study. However, the main purpose of this paper is to introduce a new approach to investigate the complex relationship between human activity and the earth system. It is hoped that it will inspire further ideas that prove valuable in guiding human activities appropriate for a sustainable future climate.