Our preprint evaluating RCP & SSP scenarios vs real-world data for Kaya factors has been updated to take into account Covid impacts⬇️ https://twitter.com/matthewgburgess/status/1288951135135576067
This figure is sufficient to tell anyone why it is erroneous to rely on RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5 or SSP3-7.0 to say anything about the real-world (the one we live in)

These re not "high-end" or "extreme" scenarios
They are empirically & undeniably wrong in 2020 and will get wronger
Why?
We find that per-capita GDP and carbon intensity growth rates are over-projected in the scenarios

Read the full paper here:
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ahsxw
If you'd like to know how the climate research community came not only to rely on erroneous scenarios but to place them at the very center of climate research, see this paper
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3581777
The needs/wants of physical climate modeling - not realism, plausibility or policy relevance - is one key factor which led to the transformation of implausible scenarios into "reference" scenarios prioritized in climate research (specifically: RCP8.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5)
These analyses are important
Not just for climate research and its use in policy
But as a matter of scientific integrity and as a test of the ability of climate research to self-correct when clear errors are found

... more to come.
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