Evaluation of CMIP5 palaeo-simulations to improve climate projections

Harrison, Sandy P.; Bartlein, Patrick J.; Izumi, Kenji; Li, Guangqi; Annan, J. D.; Hargreaves, J. C.; Braconnot, Pascale; Kageyama, Masa

doi:10.1038/nclimate2649

Cited by 242 publications

(281 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…However, it must also be noted that the correlation for the LGM, although statistically significant, was not overwhelmingly strong. Moreover, the PMIP3 ensemble gave much more equivocal results (Harrison et al, 2015;Hopcroft and Valdes, 2015). Thus, it remains challenging to use the LGM to quantitatively constrain S.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Could the Pliocene constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity?

Hargreaves¹

2016

Clim. Past

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Abstract. The mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP) is the most recent interval in which atmospheric carbon dioxide was substantially higher than in modern pre-industrial times. It is, therefore, a potentially valuable target for testing the ability of climate models to simulate climates warmer than the pre-industrial state. The recent Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) presented boundary conditions for the mPWP and a protocol for climate model experiments. Here we analyse results from the PlioMIP and, for the first time, discuss the potential for this interval to usefully constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity. We observe a correlation in the ensemble between their tropical temperature anomalies at the mPWP and their equilibrium sensitivities. If the real world is assumed to also obey this relationship, then the reconstructed tropical temperature anomaly at the mPWP can in principle generate a constraint on the true sensitivity. Directly applying this methodology using available data yields a range for the equilibrium sensitivity of 1.9-3.7 • C, but there are considerable additional uncertainties surrounding the analysis which are not included in this estimate. We consider the extent to which these uncertainties may be better quantified and perhaps lessened in the next few years.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Could the Pliocene constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity?

Hargreaves¹

2016

Clim. Past

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“…Benchmarking using modern observations does not provide an assessment of whether model performance is likely to be realistic under radically different climate conditions. The climate-modelling community use records of the preobservational era to assess how well models simulate climates significantly different from the present (Braconnot et al, 2012;Flato et al, 2014;Harrison et al, 2014Harrison et al, , 2015Schmidt et al, 2014). FireMIP will extend this approach to the evaluation of fire-enabled vegetation models, building on the work of Brücher et al (2014).…”

Section: Carbon Combustibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Flato et al, 2014;Friedlingstein et al, 2014;Harrison et al, 2015). "Out-ofsample" evaluation is one way of identifying whether good performance under modern conditions is due to the concatenation of process tuning.…”

Section: Objective and Organization Of Firemipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The status and challenge of global fire modelling

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Biomass burning impacts vegetation dynamics, biogeochemical cycling, atmospheric chemistry, and climate, with sometimes deleterious socio-economic impacts. Under future climate projections it is often expected that the risk of wildfires will increase. Our ability to predict the magnitude and geographic pattern of future fire impacts rests on our ability to model fire regimes, using either well-founded empirical relationships or process-based models with good predictive skill. While a large variety of models exist today, it is still unclear which type of model or degree of complexity is required to model fire adequately at regional to global scales. This is the central question underpinning the creation of the Fire Model Intercomparison Project (FireMIP), an international initiative to compare and evaluate existing global fire models against benchmark data sets for present-day and historical conditions. In this paper we review how fires have been represented in fire-enabled dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) and give an overview of the current state of the art in fire-regime modelling. We indicate which challenges still remain in global fire modelling and stress the need for a comprehensive model evaluation and outline what lessons may be learned from FireMIP.

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“…The changes in insolation are characterized by enhanced seasonal contrast in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) (and reduced seasonal contrast in the Southern Hemisphere, SH), giving rise to warmer NH summers and a significant enhancement of the NH monsoons (COHMAP Members, 1988;Hély et al, 2014;Lezine et al, 2011;Saraswat et al, 2013;Tierney et al, 2017). Systematic benchmarking against pollen-based reconstructions of climate variables and lake-level-based waterbalance reconstructions (Braconnot et al, 2007b(Braconnot et al, , 2012Coe and Harrison, 2002;Harrison et al, 1998Harrison et al, , 2014Harrison et al, , 2015 has highlighted the fact that climate models persistently underestimate changes in the monsoon precipitation and produce too much continental drying (Harrison et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The modeling of paleoclimate, using physically based tools, has long been used to understand and explain past environmental and climate changes (Kutzbach and Street-Perrott, 1985), and is increasingly seen as a strong out-of-sample test of the models that are used for the projection of future climate changes (Braconnot et al, 2012;Harrison et al, 2014Harrison et al, , 2015Schmidt et al, 2014). The Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) has served to coordinate paleoclimate experiments and data-model comparisons for several decades (Braconnot et al, 2007a(Braconnot et al, , b, 2012Joussaume and Taylor, 1995;Joussaume et al, 1999), and now spearheads the paleoclimate contribution to the current phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6, Eyring et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The PMIP4 contribution to CMIP6 – Part 2: Two interglacials, scientific objective and experimental design for Holocene and Last Interglacial simulations

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Two interglacial epochs are included in the suite of Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP4) simulations in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). The experimental protocols for simulations of the mid-Holocene (midHolocene, 6000 years before present) and the Last Interglacial (lig127k, 127 000 years before present) are described here. These equilibrium simulations are designed to examine the impact of changes in orbital forcing at times when atmospheric greenhouse gas levels were similar to those of the preindustrial period and the continental configurations were almost identical to modern ones. These simulations test our understanding of the interplay between radiative forcing and atmospheric circulation, and the connections among large-scale and regional climate changes giving rise to phenomena such as land-sea contrast and highlatitude amplification in temperature changes, and responses of the monsoons, as compared to today. They also provide an opportunity, through carefully designed additional sensitivity experiments, to quantify the strength of atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and land-surface feedbacks. Sensitivity experiments are proposed to investigate the role of freshwater forcing in triggering abrupt climate changes within interglacial epochs. These feedback experiments naturally lead to a focus on climate evolution during interglacial periods, which will be examined through transient experiments. Analyses of the sensitivity simulations will also focus on interactions between extratropical and tropical circulation, and the relationship between changes in mean climate state and climate variability on annual to multi-decadal timescales. The comparative abundance of paleoenvironmental data and of quantitative climate reconstructions for the Holocene and Last Interglacial make these two epochs ideal candidates for systematic evaluation of model performance, and such comparisons will shed new light on the importance of external feedbacks (e.g., vegetation, dust) and the ability of state-of-the-art models to simulate climate changes realistically.

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Evaluation of CMIP5 palaeo-simulations to improve climate projections

Cited by 242 publications

References 95 publications

Could the Pliocene constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity?

Could the Pliocene constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity?

The status and challenge of global fire modelling

The PMIP4 contribution to CMIP6 – Part 2: Two interglacials, scientific objective and experimental design for Holocene and Last Interglacial simulations

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