Climate and carbon cycle changes from 1850 to 2100 in MPI‐ESM simulations for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5

Abstract

[1] The new Max-Planck-Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) is used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) in a series of climate change experiments for either idealized CO 2 -only forcing or forcings based on observations and the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. The paper gives an overview of the model configurations, experiments related forcings, and initialization procedures and presents results for the simulated changes in climate and carbon cycle. It is found that the climate feedback depends on the global warming and possibly the forcing history. The global warming from climatological 1850 conditions to 2080-2100 ranges from 1.5 C under the RCP2.6 scenario to 4.4 C under the RCP8.5 scenario. Over this range, the patterns of temperature and precipitation change are nearly independent of the global warming. The model shows a tendency to reduce the ocean heat uptake efficiency toward a warmer climate, and hence acceleration in warming in the later years. The precipitation sensitivity can be as high as 2.5% K 21 if the CO 2 concentration is constant, or as small as 1.6% K 21, if the CO 2 concentration is increasing. The oceanic uptake of anthropogenic carbon increases over time in all scenarios, being smallest in the experiment forced by RCP2.6 and largest in that for RCP8.5. The land also serves as a net carbon sink in all scenarios, predominantly in boreal regions. The strong tropical carbon sources found in the RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 experiments are almost absent in the RCP4.5 experiment, which can be explained by reforestation in the RCP4.5 scenario.Citation: Giorgetta, M. A., et al. (2013), Climate and carbon cycle changes from 1850 to 2100 in MPI-ESM simulations for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 5, 572-597,

Climatic and societal impacts of a volcanic double event at the dawn of the Middle Ages

“…The climate impacts to be expected from the 536 and 540 eruptions were estimated through ensemble simulations with the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM, (Giorgetta et al 2013)) using the reconstructed radiative forcing timeseries as prescribed forcing (as in Timmreck et al 2010). Initial conditions for 12 ensemble members were defined by the climate state at unique points of time in a 1000-year-long pre-industrial control run performed as part of the 5th phase of the Climate Model Intercomparison project (CMIP5), and were selected so as to span a wide range of climate states in regards to NH extratropical (30-90°N) mean temperature (Fig.…”

Rain-on-snow events over North America based on two Canadian regional climate models

“…The atmospheric lateral boundary conditions are obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) gridded ERA-Interim reanalysis dataset (Dee et al 2011), the CCCma Canadian Earth System Model 2 (CanESM2) simulated dataset (Arora et al 2011), and the Max-Planck-Institut Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) simulated data (Giorgetta et al 2013). CRCM5 and CanRCM4 simulations driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis (CRCM5-ERA and Can-RCM4-ERA hereafter) for the 1989-2008 period are used for the evaluation of the RCMs.…”

Internal variability in simulated and observed tropical tropospheric temperature trends

“…For simulations, we use historical and RCP4.5 runs from 44 different GCMs from the CMIP5 archive [Taylor et al, 2012;Bi et al, 2013;Xin et al, 2013;Ji et al, 2014;von Salzen et al, 2013;Meehl et al, 2012;Hurrell et al, 2012;Scoccimarro et al, 2011;Voldoire et al, 2013;Rotstayn et al, 2010;Hazeleger et al, 2010;Li et al, 2013;Delworth et al, 2006;Donner et al, 2011;Schmidt et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2010;Collins et al, 2011;Jones et al, 2011;Volodin et al, 2010;Dufresne et al, 2013;Hourdin et al, 2013;Sakamoto et al, 2012;Watanabe et al, 2010Watanabe et al, , 2011Giorgetta et al, 2013;Yukimoto et al, 2012;Bentsen et al, 2013], and from the 100 realization single-model large ensemble of the MPI-ESM [Giorgetta et al, 2013]. The large ensemble uses the model version MPI-ESM1.1 in low resolution (LR) configuration, with resolution T63 and 47 vertical levels in the atmosphere and 1.5 ∘ resolution and 40 vertical levels in the ocean.…”