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  • Perspective
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Taking climate model evaluation to the next level

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 102–110 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Earth system models are complex and represent a large number of processes, resulting in a persistent spread across climate projections for a given future scenario. Owing to different model performances against observations and the lack of independence among models, there is now evidence that giving equal weight to each available model projection is suboptimal. This Perspective discusses newly developed tools that facilitate a more rapid and comprehensive evaluation of model simulations with observations, process-based emergent constraints that are a promising way to focus evaluation on the observations most relevant to climate projections, and advanced methods for model weighting. These approaches are needed to distil the most credible information on regional climate changes, impacts, and risks for stakeholders and policy-makers.

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Fig. 1: Annual mean SST error from the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble.
Fig. 2: Schematic diagram of the workflow for CMIP Evaluation Tools running alongside the ESGF.
Fig. 3: Examples of newly developed physical and biogeochemical emergent constraints since the AR5.
Fig. 4: Model skill and independence weights for CMIP5 models evaluated over the contiguous United States/Canada domain.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) for hosting a workshop on Earth System Model Evaluation to Improve Process Understanding in August 2017 as part of its traditionally landmark summer interdisciplinary sessions (http://www.agci.org/event/17s2). NASA, the Heising-Simons Foundation, Horizon 2020 European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under Grant Agreement No 641816, the Coordinated Research in Earth Systems and Climate: Experiments, kNowledge, Dissemination and Outreach (CRESCENDO) project, the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Climate Model User Group (CMUG), WCRP and the Department of Energy (DOE) all provided support for the workshop. The viewpoint presented here substantially draws on conclusions from that workshop. Portions of this study were supported by the Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) component of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program of the US DOE Office of Biological & Environmental Research (BER) Cooperative Agreement DE-FC02-97ER62402 and Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 and the National Science Foundation. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

    Veronika Eyring & Bettina K. Gier

  2. University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), Bremen, Germany

    Veronika Eyring & Bettina K. Gier

  3. College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Peter M. Cox & Mark S. Williamson

  4. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Gregory M. Flato

  5. Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Peter J. Gleckler, Peter Caldwell, Stephen A. Klein & Benjamin D. Santer

  6. Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Gab Abramowitz & Steven C. Sherwood

  7. Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    William D. Collins

  8. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    William D. Collins

  9. University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Alex D. Hall

  10. Computational Earth Sciences Group and Climate Change Science Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

    Forrest M. Hoffman

  11. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Forrest M. Hoffman

  12. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    George C. Hurtt

  13. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Alexandra Jahn

  14. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK

    Chris D. Jones

  15. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA, Princeton, NJ, USA

    John P. Krasting

  16. Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD), IPSL, Paris, France

    Lester Kwiatkowski

  17. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Ruth Lorenz

  18. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Eric Maloney & Robert Pincus

  19. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO, USA

    Gerald A. Meehl, Angeline G. Pendergrass, Benjamin M. Sanderson & Isla R. Simpson

  20. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

    Alex C. Ruane

  21. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Joellen L. Russell & Ronald J. Stouffer

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  1. Veronika Eyring
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V.E., P.M.C., G.M.F. and P.J.G. were the co-chairs of the AGCI workshop and led the writing of the paper. All authors participated in the AGCI workshop and contributed to discussions and writing of the text.

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Correspondence to Veronika Eyring.

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Eyring, V., Cox, P.M., Flato, G.M. et al. Taking climate model evaluation to the next level. Nature Clim Change 9, 102–110 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0355-y

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