CCR IAM Staff: Brian O'Neill, Scientist III

Short Bio

Brian O'Neill leads the Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) group within the Climate Change Research section at NCAR. The IAM group is also part of NCAR's Integrated Science Program (ISP). Brian holds a Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science and an M.S. in Applied Science, both from New York University, and has worked previously on the science staff of the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, and as an Assistant and Associate Professor (Research) at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. During the period 2005-2009, he founded and led the Population and Climate Change Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria.

His research interests are in the field of integrated assessment modeling of climate change, which links socio-economic and natural science elements of the climate change issue in order to address applied, policy-relevant questions. Current areas of focus include the relationship between socio-economic development paths and greenhouse gas emissions, the characterization of uncertainty and its role in decision analysis, and scenario analyses linking long-term climate change goals to shorter-term actions.

Brian is the lead author (along with Landis MacKellar and Wolfgang Lutz) of Population and Climate Change, published by Cambridge University Press. He has also served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report in a volume on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (Working Group II), and for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in a volume on Scenarios. He is currently serving as lead author in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report, in Working Group II.

Selected Publications

Kriegler, E., O'Neill, B.C., Hallegatte, S., Kram, T., Lempert, R., Moss, R., Wilbanks, T. (2010) Socio-economic scenario development for climate change analysis. CIRED Working Paper DT/WP No 2010-23, October 2010. [ Abstract ] [ Full Text (PDF) ]

Melnikov, N., O'Neill, B.C., Dalton, M. Accounting for household heterogeneity in general equilibrium economic growth models. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, submitted. [ Full Text (PDF) ]

O'Neill, B.C., Dalton, M., Fuchs, R., Jiang, L., Pachauri, S., Zigova, K. (2010) Global demographic trends and future carbon emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - USA 107 (41), 17521-17526. [ Abstract ] [ Full Text (PDF) ] [ Press Release ]

O'Neill, B.C., Riahi, K., and Keppo, I. (2010) Mitigation implications of mid-century targets that preserve long-term climate policy options. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - USA 107(3), 1011-1016. [ Abstract ] [ Full Text (PDF) ] [ Press Release ]

Fuchs, R., Pachauri, S., and B.C. O'Neill (2009). Production data for the Population-Environment-Technology (PET) Model. IIASA Interim Report IR-09-025. Laxenburg, Austria: IIASA.

Jiang, L. and B.C. O'Neill BC (2009). Household projections for rural and urban areas of major regions of the world. IIASA Interim Report IR-09-026. Laxenburg, Austria: IIASA.[ Full Text (PDF) ]

Tanaka, K., Tol, R. S. J., Rokityanskiy, D., O'Neill, B. C., and M. Obersteiner. (2009) Evaluating global warming potentials as historical temperature proxies: an application of ACC2 inverse calculation. Climatic Change, 96, 443--466, doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9566-6/.

Tanaka, K., Raddatz, T., O'Neill, B.C. and C.H. Reick. (2009) Insufficient forcing uncertainty underestimates the risk of high climate sensitivity. Geophysical Research Letters, in press, doi:10.1029/2009GL039642.

Dalton, M., O'Neill, B. C., Prskawetz, A., Jiang, L., and J. Pitkin (2008) Population aging and future carbon emissions in the United States. Energy Economics, 30, 642-675, doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2006.07.002. [ Full Text (PDF) ]

Moss, R., and 30 co-authors (including B. O'Neill). (2008) Towards New Scenarios for Analysis of Emissions, Climate Change, Impacts, and Response Strategies, IPCC Expert Meeting Report. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 132 pp.

O'Neill, B.C., Pulver, S., VanDeveer, S., and Garb, Y. (2008) Where next with global environmental scenarios?, Environmental Research Letters 3, 045012 (4pp), doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/3/4/045012. Special issue on Where Next With Global Environmental Scenarios?

O'Neill, B.C. and Nakicenovic, N. Learning from global emissions scenarios. Environmental Research Letters 3, 045014 (9pp), doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/3/4/045014. Special issue on Where Next With Global Environmental Scenarios?

O'Neill, B. C. (2008) Learning and climate change: Introduction and overview. Climatic Change 89(1-2),1-6,doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9443-8. Special issue on Learning and Climate Change.

O'Neill, B.C. and Melnikov, N. (2008) Learning about parameter and structural uncertainty in carbon cycle models. Climatic Change 89(1-2), 23-44, doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9404-2. Special issue on Learning and Climate Change.

O'Neill, B.C. and Sanderson, W. (2008) Population, uncertainty, and learning in climate change decision analyses. Climatic Change 89(1-2), 87-123, doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9419-8. Special issue on Learning and Climate Change.

Oppenheimer, M., O'Neill, B.C., and Webster, M. (2008) Negative learning. Climatic Change 89(1-2),155-172, doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9405-1. Special issue on Learning and Climate Change.

Grubler, A. and 3 co-authors and 6 contributors (including B.C. O'Neill), (2007) Integrated assessment of uncertainties in greenhouse gas emissions and their mitigation: Introduction and overview, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74, 873-886.

Grubler, A. and 8 co-authors (including B.C. O'Neill), (2007) Regional, national, and spatially explicit scenarios of demographic and economic change based on SRES. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74, 980-1029.

Keppo, I., O'Neill, B.C., and Riahi, K. (2007) Probabilistic temperature change projections and energy system implications of greenhouse gas mitigation scenarios. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74, 936-961.

Jiang, L. and O'Neill, B.C. (2007) Impacts of demographic trends on US household size and structure. Population and Development Review 33(3), 567-591.

Oppenheimer, M., O'Neill, B.C., Webster, M., and S. Agrawala (2007). The limits of consensus (Policy Forum). Science 317, 1505-1506.

O'Neill, B.C., Crutzen, P., Grübler, A., Ha Duong, M., Keller, K., Kolstad, C., Koomey, J., Lange, A., Obersteiner, M., Oppenheimer, M., Pepper, W., Sanderson, W., Schlesinger, M., Treich, N., Ulph, A., Webster, M., and C. Wilson. (2006) Learning and climate change (Commentary). Climate Policy, 6, 585-589.

van Vuuren, D. and O'Neill, B.C. (2006) The consistency of IPCC's SRES scenarios to 1990-2000 trends and recent projections. Climatic Change 75, 9-46.

Melnikov, N. and O'Neill, B.C. (2006) Learning about the carbon cycle from global budget data. Geophysical Research Letters 33, L02705, doi:10.1029/2005GL023935.

O'Neill, B.C., Oppenheimer, M. and Petsonk, A. (2005) Interim targets and the climate treaty regime (Commentary). Climate Policy 5, 639-645.

O'Neill, B.C. (2005) Population scenarios based on probabilistic projections: An application for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Population & Environment 26(3), 229-254.

Sanderson, W., Scherbov, S., O'Neill, B.C., and W. Lutz. (2004) Conditional probabilistic population forecasting, International Statistical Review 72(2), 157-166.

O'Neill, B.C. and M. Oppenheimer. (2004) Climate change impacts are sensitive to the concentration stabilization path, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science - USA 101(47), 16411-16416.

O'Neill, B.C. (2004) Conditional probabilistic population projections: an application to climate change, International Statistical Review 72(2), 167-184.

Jiang, L. and B.C. O'Neill. (2004) The energy transition in rural China, International Journal of Global Energy Issues 21(1/2), 2-26.

Lutz, W., O'Neill, B.C., and S. Scherbov (2003) Europe's population at a turning point (Policy Forum), Science 299, 1991-1992.

O'Neill, B.C. (2003) Economics, natural science, and the costs of Global Warming Potentials (Editorial Essay, invited), Climatic Change 58, 251-260.

O'Neill, B.C. and M. Oppenheimer (2002) Dangerous climate impacts and the Kyoto Protocol (Policy Forum), Science 296, 1971-1972.