One's discipline is like a pair of prescription glasses: it brings certain things into sharp focus and makes them legible. But clarity is not the same as completeness: the prescription corrects for some distortions while introducing others. To venture into another discipline is to take off a long-worn pair and try on lenses ground to a different specification, one that may, at first, make the familiar blurry even as it reveals what was previously invisible. The temptation is to keep switching back to the comfortable pair. The real work begins when you learn to tolerate the discomfort long enough to see what the new prescription is actually showing you. And the most productive interdisciplinary work comes not from choosing one pair over the other, but from understanding what each corrects for, what each distorts, and when each one is most needed.
Research Programme
My research focuses on climate change mitigation scenarios and integrated assessment modelling, with three current areas of focus: the impact of disruptive events, overshoot, and tipping points on mitigation pathways; applications of artificial intelligence in climate science and evidence synthesis; and diagnostic methods for evaluating scenario ensembles and translating them into policy-relevant insights.
Active Projects
FUTURA (Horizon Europe, awarded 2025), Co-Investigator; emission scenario emulator development
DIAMOND (Horizon Europe, concluding November 2026), Work Package 4 lead
Publications
For a full and up-to-date list of publications, see Google Scholar.
Selected recent publications:
Al Khourdajie, A. (2025). 'The role of artificial intelligence in climate change scientific assessments.' PLOS Climate, 4(9): e0000706. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000706
Al Khourdajie, A. (2025). 'Exploring climate futures with deep learning.' Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02350-w
Bataille, C., Al Khourdajie, A. (co-leads), et al. (2025). 'Defining "abated" fossil fuel and industrial process emissions.' Energy and Climate Change, 6, 100203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egycc.2025.100203
Nikas, A., Frilingou, N., Al Khourdajie, A. & Gambhir, A. (2024). 'Science must up its game to support climate finance negotiations.' Nature, 636, p.45. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03945-7
Reisinger, A., Cowie, A., Geden, O. & Al Khourdajie, A. (2024). 'Science-based targets miss the mark.' Communications Earth and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01535-z
Al Khourdajie, A., Skea, J. & Green, R. (2024). 'Climate ambition, background scenario or the model? Attribution of the variance of energy-related indicators in global scenarios.' Energy and Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egycc.2024.100126
Preprints
Al Khourdajie, A., Gambhir, A., Keppo, I., et al. (2025). 'Navigating the unexpected: The impact of disruptive events on mitigation scenarios.' Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7427967/v1
Scientific Assessments
Current
IPCC Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), Working Group III, Lead Author, Chapter 14: Integration and Interactions Across Sectors and Systems (2025-present).
World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), Co-leading Section 7 on threshold breaching and tipping points in socioecological impacts, in: High Impact Events and Tipping Points Assessment Report (2024-present).
IPCC Task Group on Data (TG-Data), Seventh Assessment Cycle (2025-present).
Completed
UNEP Global Environment Outlook 7 (GEO7), Lead Author, Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 19 (2022-2025).
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), Working Group III, Editor, Coordinating Lead Author (Definitions Annex), Contributing Author (Chapters 2, 3, 12), Senior Scientist at the Technical Support Unit (2019-2023). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157926
Datasets
Byers, E., Krey, V., Kriegler, E., Riahi, K., et al. [including Al Khourdajie, A.] (2022). 'AR6 Scenarios Database.' IIASA. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5886911
Richters, O., Kriegler, E., Al Khourdajie, A., et al. (2024). 'NGFS Climate Scenarios Data Set.' Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10807824
Al Khourdajie, A. (2022). 'AR6 Working Group III FAIR Supplementary Material.' https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6490164
Peer Review
Referee for Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, Joule, Nature Communications, Climate Policy, and others.
Guest Editor, Futures: Special Issue 'Constructing futures through climate modelling.'
Report Reviewer: UNEP Emissions Gap Report, UNEP Production Gap Report, IISD.