We present the global general circulation model IPSL-CM5 developed to study the long-term response of the climate system to natural and anthropogenic forcings as part of the 5th Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). This model includes an interactive carbon cycle, a representation of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry, and a comprehensive representation of aerosols. As it represents the principal dynamical, physical, and biogeochemical processes relevant to the climate system, it may be referred to as an Earth System Model. However, the IPSL-CM5 model may be used in a multitude of configurations associated with different boundary conditions and with a range of complexities in terms of processes and interactions. This paper presents an overview of the different model components and explains how they were coupled and used to simulate historical climate changes over the past 150 years and different scenarios of future climate change. A single version of the IPSL-CM5 model (IPSL-CM5A-LR) was used to provide climate projections associated with different socio-economic scenarios, including the different Representative Concentration Pathways considered by CMIP5 and several scenarios from the Special Report on Emission Scenarios considered by CMIP3. Results suggest that the magnitude of global warming projections primarily depends on the socio-economic scenario considered, that there is potential for an aggressive mitigation policy to limit global warming to about two degrees, and This paper is a contribution to the special issue on the IPSL and CNRM global climate and Earth System Models, both developed in France and contributing to the 5th coupled model intercomparison project.

The LMDZ4 general circulation model is the atmospheric component of the IPSL-CM4 coupled model which has been used to perform climate change simulations for the 4th IPCC assessment report. The main aspects of the model climatology (forced by observed sea surface temperature) are documented here, as well as the major improvements with respect to the previous versions, which mainly come form the parametrization of tropical convection. A methodology is proposed to help analyse the sensitivity of the tropical Hadley- Walker circulation to the parametrization of cumulus convection and clouds. The tropical circulation is characterized using scalar potentials associated with the horizontal wind and horizontal transport of geopotential (the Laplacian of which is proportional to the total vertical momentum in the atmospheric column). The effect of parametrized physics is analysed in a regime sorted framework using the vertical velocity at 500 hPa as a proxy for large scale vertical motion. Compared to Tiedtke s convection scheme, used in previous versions, the Emanuel s scheme improves the representation of the Hadley-Walker circulation, with a relatively stronger and deeper large scale vertical ascent over tropical continents, and suppresses the marked patterns of concentrated rainfall over oceans. Thanks to the regime sorted analyses, this differences are attributed to intrinsic differences in the vertical distribution of convective heating, and to the lack of self-inhibition by precipitating downdraughts in Tiedtke s parametrization. Both the convection and cloud schemes are shown to control the relative importance of large scale convection over land and ocean, an important point for the behaviour of the coupled model

[1] The winter of 2009/2010 was characterized by record persistence of the negative phase of the North-Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) which caused several severe cold spells over Northern and Western Europe. This somehow unusual winter with respect to the most recent ones arose concurrently with public debate on climate change, during and after the Copenhagen climate negotiations. We show however that the cold European temperature anomaly of winter 2010 was (i) not extreme relative to winters of the past six decades, and (ii) warmer than expected from its record-breaking seasonal circulation indices such as NAO or blocking frequency. Daily flow-analogues of winter 2010, taken in past winters, were associated with much colder temperatures. The winter 2010 thus provides a consistent picture of a regional cold event mitigated by long-term climate warming.

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This study presents the global climate model IPSL-CM6A-LR developed at Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) to study natural climate variability and climate response to natural and anthropogenic forcings as part of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). This article describes the different model components, their coupling, and the simulated climate in comparison to previous model versions. We focus here on the representation of the physical climate along with the main characteristics of the global carbon cycle. The model's climatology, as assessed from a range of metrics (related in particular to radiation, temperature, precipitation, and wind), is strongly improved in comparison to previous model versions. Although they are reduced, a number of known biases and shortcomings (e.g., double Intertropical Convergence Zone [ITCZ], frequency of midlatitude wintertime blockings, and El Niño-Southern Oscillation [ENSO] dynamics) persist. The equilibrium climate sensitivity and transient climate response have both increased from the previous climate model IPSL-CM5A-LR used in CMIP5. A large ensemble of more than 30 members for the historical period (1850-2018) and a smaller ensemble for a range of emissions scenarios (until 2100 and 2300) are also presented and discussed.Plain Language Summary Climate models are unique tools to investigate the characteristics and behavior of the climate system. While climate models and their components are developed gradually over the years, the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) has been the

International audienceThis paper presents the major characteristics of the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model. The model components and the coupling methodology are described, as well as the main characteristics of the climatology and interannual variability. The model results of the standard version used for IPCC climate projections, and for intercomparison projects like the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP 2) are compared to those with a higher resolution in the atmosphere. A focus on the North Atlantic and on the tropics is used to address the impact of the atmosphere resolution on processes and feedbacks. In the North Atlantic, the resolution change leads to an improved representation of the storm-tracks and the North Atlantic oscillation. The better representation of the wind structure increases the northward salt transports, the deep-water formation and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. In the tropics, the ocean-atmosphere dynamical coupling, or Bjerknes feedback, improves with the resolution. The amplitude of ENSO (El Niño-Southern oscillation) consequently increases, as the damping processes are left unchanged

The IPSL-CM5A climate model was used to perform a large number of control, historical and climate change simulations in the frame of CMIP5. The refined horizontal and vertical grid of the atmospheric component, LMDZ, constitutes a major difference compared to the previous IPSL-CM4 version used for CMIP3. From imposed-SST (Sea Surface Temperature) and coupled numerical experiments, we systematically analyze the impact of the horizontal and vertical grid resolution on the simulated climate. The refinement of the horizontal grid results in a systematic reduction of major biases in the mean tropospheric structures and SST. The mid-latitude jets, located too close to the equator with the coarsest grids, move poleward. This robust feature, is accompanied by a drying at mid-latitudes and a reduction of cold biases in mid-latitudes relative to the equator. The model was also extended to the stratosphere by increasing the number of layers on the vertical from 19 to 39 (15 in the stratosphere) and adding relevant parameterizations. The 39-layer version captures the dominant modes of the stratospheric variability and exhibits stratospheric sudden warmings. Changing either the vertical or horizontal resolution modifies the global energy balance in imposed-SST simulations by typically several W/m 2 which translates in the coupled atmosphere-ocean simulations into a different global-mean SST. The sensitivity is of about 1.2 K per 1 W/m 2 when varying the horizontal grid. A re-tuning of model parameters was thus required to restore this energy balance in the imposed-SST simulations and reduce the biases in the simulated mean surface temperature and, to some extent, latitudinal SST variations in the coupled experiments for the modern climate. The tuning hardly compensates, however, for robust biases of the coupled model. Despite the wide range of grid configurations explored and their significant impact on the present-day climate, the climate sensitivity remains essentially unchanged.

The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is classified as a polar desert where, similar to other deserts around the world, the annual precipitation is dependent on a few episodic precipitation events. Recent research has highlighted that certain regions of the AIS receive 40%-60% of their total annual precipitation from the largest 10% of daily precipitation events (Turner et al., 2019). There is a high coast-inland snowfall gradient, as most