Articles | Volume 15, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-987-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-987-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
06 Aug 2024
Research article |
| 06 Aug 2024
| 06 Aug 2024
Exploration of diverse solutions for the calibration of imperfect climate models
Saloua Peatier
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
CERFACS/CECI, Toulouse, France
Benjamin M. Sanderson
Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway
Laurent Terray
CERFACS/CECI, Toulouse, France
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Susanne Baur, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Roland Séférian, and Laurent Terray
Earth Syst. Dynam., 16, 667–681, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-667-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-667-2025, 2025
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Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) could be used alongside mitigation to reduce global warming. Previous studies suggest that more atmospheric CO2 is taken up when SAI is deployed. Here, we look at the entire SAI deployment from start to after termination. We show how the initial CO2 uptake benefit, and hence lower mitigation burden, is reduced in later stages of SAI, where the reduction in natural CO2 uptake turns into an additional mitigation burden.
Norman J. Steinert and Benjamin M. Sanderson
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1714, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1714, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth System Dynamics (ESD).
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In this study, we explore how carbon emissions from thawing permafrost, known as the permafrost carbon feedback, affect two important climate metrics: how much the Earth warms per amount of carbon we emit, and how much warming continues after we stop emitting carbon. Our study tackles a major gap in how we estimate future climate change. Using simplified climate models, we find a generalizable relationship between the permafrost carbon feedback and its additional warming impact on climate.
Marit Sandstad, Norman Julius Steinert, Susanne Baur, and Benjamin Mark Sanderson
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1038, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1038, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
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In this article we present METEORv1.0.0, a climate model emulator, that can be trained on full spacially resolved and widely available climate model data to reproduce climate variables, and make predictions from unseen emission trajectories. The methodology which consists of identifying patterns associated with various timescales of impact for one or more forcers using idealised experiments and anomaly calculations. Results for precipitation and temperature show good model performance.
Detlef van Vuuren, Brian O'Neill, Claudia Tebaldi, Louise Chini, Pierre Friedlingstein, Tomoko Hasegawa, Keywan Riahi, Benjamin Sanderson, Bala Govindasamy, Nico Bauer, Veronika Eyring, Cheikh Fall, Katja Frieler, Matthew Gidden, Laila Gohar, Andrew Jones, Andrew King, Reto Knutti, Elmar Kriegler, Peter Lawrence, Chris Lennard, Jason Lowe, Camila Mathison, Shahbaz Mehmood, Luciana Prado, Qiang Zhang, Steven Rose, Alexander Ruane, Carl-Friederich Schleussner, Roland Seferian, Jana Sillmann, Chris Smith, Anna Sörensson, Swapna Panickal, Kaoru Tachiiri, Naomi Vaughan, Saritha Vishwanathan, Tokuta Yokohata, and Tilo Ziehn
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3765, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3765, 2025
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We propose a set of six plausible 21st century emission scenarios, and their multi-century extensions, that will be used by the international community of climate modeling centers to produce the next generation of climate projections. These projections will support climate, impact and mitigation researchers, provide information to practitioners to address future risks from climate change, and contribute to policymakers’ considerations of the trade-offs among various levels of mitigation.
John Patrick Dunne, Helene T. Hewitt, Julie Arblaster, Frédéric Bonou, Olivier Boucher, Tereza Cavazos, Paul J. Durack, Birgit Hassler, Martin Juckes, Tomoki Miyakawa, Matthew Mizielinski, Vaishali Naik, Zebedee Nicholls, Eleanor O’Rourke, Robert Pincus, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Isla R. Simpson, and Karl E. Taylor
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3874, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3874, 2024
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This manuscript provides the motivation and experimental design for the seventh phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP7) to coordinate community based efforts to answer key and timely climate science questions and facilitate delivery of relevant multi-model simulations for: prediction and projection, characterization, attribution and process understanding; vulnerability, impacts and adaptations analysis; national and international climate assessments; and society at large.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Ben B. B. Booth, John Dunne, Veronika Eyring, Rosie A. Fisher, Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew J. Gidden, Tomohiro Hajima, Chris D. Jones, Colin G. Jones, Andrew King, Charles D. Koven, David M. Lawrence, Jason Lowe, Nadine Mengis, Glen P. Peters, Joeri Rogelj, Chris Smith, Abigail C. Snyder, Isla R. Simpson, Abigail L. S. Swann, Claudia Tebaldi, Tatiana Ilyina, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Roland Séférian, Bjørn H. Samset, Detlef van Vuuren, and Sönke Zaehle
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8141–8172, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8141-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8141-2024, 2024
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We discuss how, in order to provide more relevant guidance for climate policy, coordinated climate experiments should adopt a greater focus on simulations where Earth system models are provided with carbon emissions from fossil fuels together with land use change instructions, rather than past approaches that have largely focused on experiments with prescribed atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. We discuss how these goals might be achieved in coordinated climate modeling experiments.
Benjamin Mark Sanderson, Victor Brovkin, Rosie Fisher, David Hohn, Tatiana Ilyina, Chris Jones, Torben Koenigk, Charles Koven, Hongmei Li, David Lawrence, Peter Lawrence, Spencer Liddicoat, Andrew Macdougall, Nadine Mengis, Zebedee Nicholls, Eleanor O'Rourke, Anastasia Romanou, Marit Sandstad, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Seferian, Lori Sentman, Isla Simpson, Chris Smith, Norman Steinert, Abigail Swann, Jerry Tjiputra, and Tilo Ziehn
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3356, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3356, 2024
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This study investigates how climate models warm in response to simplified carbon emissions trajectories, refining understanding of climate reversibility and commitment. Metrics are defined for warming response to cumulative emissions and for the cessation or ramp-down to net-zero and net-negative levels. Results indicate that previous concentration-driven experiments may have overstated zero emissions commitment due to emissions rates exceeding historical levels.
Colin G. Jones, Fanny Adloff, Ben B. B. Booth, Peter M. Cox, Veronika Eyring, Pierre Friedlingstein, Katja Frieler, Helene T. Hewitt, Hazel A. Jeffery, Sylvie Joussaume, Torben Koenigk, Bryan N. Lawrence, Eleanor O'Rourke, Malcolm J. Roberts, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Roland Séférian, Samuel Somot, Pier Luigi Vidale, Detlef van Vuuren, Mario Acosta, Mats Bentsen, Raffaele Bernardello, Richard Betts, Ed Blockley, Julien Boé, Tom Bracegirdle, Pascale Braconnot, Victor Brovkin, Carlo Buontempo, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Markus Donat, Italo Epicoco, Pete Falloon, Sandro Fiore, Thomas Frölicher, Neven S. Fučkar, Matthew J. Gidden, Helge F. Goessling, Rune Grand Graversen, Silvio Gualdi, José M. Gutiérrez, Tatiana Ilyina, Daniela Jacob, Chris D. Jones, Martin Juckes, Elizabeth Kendon, Erik Kjellström, Reto Knutti, Jason Lowe, Matthew Mizielinski, Paola Nassisi, Michael Obersteiner, Pierre Regnier, Romain Roehrig, David Salas y Mélia, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Michael Schulz, Enrico Scoccimarro, Laurent Terray, Hannes Thiemann, Richard A. Wood, Shuting Yang, and Sönke Zaehle
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 1319–1351, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1319-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1319-2024, 2024
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We propose a number of priority areas for the international climate research community to address over the coming decade. Advances in these areas will both increase our understanding of past and future Earth system change, including the societal and environmental impacts of this change, and deliver significantly improved scientific support to international climate policy, such as future IPCC assessments and the UNFCCC Global Stocktake.
Marit Sandstad, Borgar Aamaas, Ane Nordlie Johansen, Marianne Tronstad Lund, Glen Philip Peters, Bjørn Hallvard Samset, Benjamin Mark Sanderson, and Ragnhild Bieltvedt Skeie
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6589–6625, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6589-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6589-2024, 2024
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The CICERO-SCM has existed as a Fortran model since 1999 that calculates the radiative forcing and concentrations from emissions and is an upwelling diffusion energy balance model of the ocean that calculates temperature change. In this paper, we describe an updated version ported to Python and publicly available at https://github.com/ciceroOslo/ciceroscm (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10548720). This version contains functionality for parallel runs and automatic calibration.
Malte Meinshausen, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Kathleen Beyer, Greg Bodeker, Olivier Boucher, Josep G. Canadell, John S. Daniel, Aïda Diongue-Niang, Fatima Driouech, Erich Fischer, Piers Forster, Michael Grose, Gerrit Hansen, Zeke Hausfather, Tatiana Ilyina, Jarmo S. Kikstra, Joyce Kimutai, Andrew D. King, June-Yi Lee, Chris Lennard, Tabea Lissner, Alexander Nauels, Glen P. Peters, Anna Pirani, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Hans Pörtner, Joeri Rogelj, Maisa Rojas, Joyashree Roy, Bjørn H. Samset, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Roland Séférian, Sonia Seneviratne, Christopher J. Smith, Sophie Szopa, Adelle Thomas, Diana Urge-Vorsatz, Guus J. M. Velders, Tokuta Yokohata, Tilo Ziehn, and Zebedee Nicholls
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 4533–4559, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-4533-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-4533-2024, 2024
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The scientific community is considering new scenarios to succeed RCPs and SSPs for the next generation of Earth system model runs to project future climate change. To contribute to that effort, we reflect on relevant policy and scientific research questions and suggest categories for representative emission pathways. These categories are tailored to the Paris Agreement long-term temperature goal, high-risk outcomes in the absence of further climate policy and worlds “that could have been”.
Susanne Baur, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Roland Séférian, and Laurent Terray
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 307–322, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-307-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-307-2024, 2024
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Most solar radiation modification (SRM) simulations assume no physical coupling between mitigation and SRM. We analyze the impact of SRM on photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) and find that almost all regions have reduced PV and CSP potential compared to a mitigated or unmitigated scenario, especially in the middle and high latitudes. This suggests that SRM could pose challenges for meeting energy demands with solar renewable resources.
Steve Delhaye, Rym Msadek, Thierry Fichefet, François Massonnet, and Laurent Terray
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1748, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1748, 2023
Preprint archived
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The climate impact of Arctic sea ice loss may depend on the region of sea ice loss and the methodology used to study this impact. This study uses two approaches across seven climate models to investigate the winter atmospheric circulation response to regional sea ice loss. Our findings indicate a consistent atmospheric circulation response to pan-Arctic sea ice loss in most models and across both approaches. In contrast, more uncertainty emerges in the responses linked to regional sea ice loss.
Susanne Baur, Alexander Nauels, Zebedee Nicholls, Benjamin M. Sanderson, and Carl-Friedrich Schleussner
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 367–381, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-367-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-367-2023, 2023
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Solar radiation modification (SRM) artificially cools global temperature without acting on the cause of climate change. This study looks at how long SRM would have to be deployed to limit warming to 1.5 °C and how this timeframe is affected by different levels of mitigation, negative emissions and climate uncertainty. None of the three factors alone can guarantee short SRM deployment. Due to their uncertainty at the time of SRM initialization, any deployment risks may be several centuries long.
Benjamin M. Sanderson and Maria Rugenstein
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1715–1736, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1715-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1715-2022, 2022
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Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is a measure of how much long-term warming should be expected in response to a change in greenhouse gas concentrations. It is generally calculated in climate models by extrapolating global average temperatures to a point of where the planet is no longer a net absorber of energy. Here we show that some climate models experience energy leaks which change as the planet warms, undermining the standard approach and biasing some existing model estimates of ECS.
Aurélien Ribes, Julien Boé, Saïd Qasmi, Brigitte Dubuisson, Hervé Douville, and Laurent Terray
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1397–1415, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1397-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1397-2022, 2022
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We use a novel statistical method to combine climate simulations and observations, and we deliver an updated assessment of past and future warming over France. As a key result, we find that the warming over that region was underestimated in previous multi-model ensembles by up to 50 %. We also assess the contribution of greenhouse gases, aerosols, and other factors to the observed warming, as well as the impact on the seasonal temperature cycle, and we discuss implications for climate services.
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Louis-Philippe Caron, Saskia Loosveldt Tomas, Javier Vegas-Regidor, Oliver Gutjahr, Marie-Pierre Moine, Dian Putrasahan, Christopher D. Roberts, Malcolm J. Roberts, Retish Senan, Laurent Terray, Etienne Tourigny, and Pier Luigi Vidale
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 269–289, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-269-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-269-2022, 2022
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Climate models do not fully reproduce observations: they show differences (biases) in regional temperature, precipitation, or cloud cover. Reducing model biases is important to increase our confidence in their ability to reproduce present and future climate changes. Model realism is set by its resolution: the finer it is, the more physical processes and interactions it can resolve. We here show that increasing resolution of up to ~ 25 km can help reduce model biases but not remove them entirely.
Laurent Terray
Weather Clim. Dynam., 2, 971–989, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-971-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-971-2021, 2021
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Attribution of the causes of extreme temperature events has become active research due to the wide-ranging impacts of recent heat waves and cold spells. Here we show that a purely observational approach based on atmospheric circulation analogues and resampling provides a robust quantification of the various dynamic and thermodynamic contributions to specific extreme temperature events. The approach can easily be integrated in the toolbox of any real-time extreme event attribution system.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Angeline G. Pendergrass, Charles D. Koven, Florent Brient, Ben B. B. Booth, Rosie A. Fisher, and Reto Knutti
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 899–918, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-899-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-899-2021, 2021
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Emergent constraints promise a pathway to the reduction in climate projection uncertainties by exploiting ensemble relationships between observable quantities and unknown climate response parameters. This study considers the robustness of these relationships in light of biases and common simplifications that may be present in the original ensemble of climate simulations. We propose a classification scheme for constraints and a number of practical case studies.
Camille Besombes, Olivier Pannekoucke, Corentin Lapeyre, Benjamin Sanderson, and Olivier Thual
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 28, 347–370, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-28-347-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-28-347-2021, 2021
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This paper investigates the potential of a type of deep generative neural network to produce realistic weather situations when trained from the climate of a general circulation model. The generator represents the climate in a compact latent space. It is able to reproduce many aspects of the targeted multivariate distribution. Some properties of our method open new perspectives such as the exploration of the extremes close to a given state or how to connect two realistic weather states.
Claudia Tebaldi, Kevin Debeire, Veronika Eyring, Erich Fischer, John Fyfe, Pierre Friedlingstein, Reto Knutti, Jason Lowe, Brian O'Neill, Benjamin Sanderson, Detlef van Vuuren, Keywan Riahi, Malte Meinshausen, Zebedee Nicholls, Katarzyna B. Tokarska, George Hurtt, Elmar Kriegler, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Gerald Meehl, Richard Moss, Susanne E. Bauer, Olivier Boucher, Victor Brovkin, Young-Hwa Byun, Martin Dix, Silvio Gualdi, Huan Guo, Jasmin G. John, Slava Kharin, YoungHo Kim, Tsuyoshi Koshiro, Libin Ma, Dirk Olivié, Swapna Panickal, Fangli Qiao, Xinyao Rong, Nan Rosenbloom, Martin Schupfner, Roland Séférian, Alistair Sellar, Tido Semmler, Xiaoying Shi, Zhenya Song, Christian Steger, Ronald Stouffer, Neil Swart, Kaoru Tachiiri, Qi Tang, Hiroaki Tatebe, Aurore Voldoire, Evgeny Volodin, Klaus Wyser, Xiaoge Xin, Shuting Yang, Yongqiang Yu, and Tilo Ziehn
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 253–293, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-253-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-253-2021, 2021
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We present an overview of CMIP6 ScenarioMIP outcomes from up to 38 participating ESMs according to the new SSP-based scenarios. Average temperature and precipitation projections according to a wide range of forcings, spanning a wider range than the CMIP5 projections, are documented as global averages and geographic patterns. Times of crossing various warming levels are computed, together with benefits of mitigation for selected pairs of scenarios. Comparisons with CMIP5 are also discussed.
Katherine Dagon, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Rosie A. Fisher, and David M. Lawrence
Adv. Stat. Clim. Meteorol. Oceanogr., 6, 223–244, https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-6-223-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-6-223-2020, 2020
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Uncertainties in land model projections are important to understand in order to build confidence in Earth system modeling. In this paper, we introduce a framework for estimating uncertain land model parameters with machine learning. This method increases the computational efficiency of this process relative to traditional hand tuning approaches and provides objective methods to assess the results. We further identify key processes and parameters that are important for accurate land modeling.
Benjamin Sanderson
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 721–735, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-721-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-721-2020, 2020
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Here, we assess the degree to which the idealized responses to transient forcing increase and step change forcing increase relate to warming under future scenarios. We find a possible explanation for the poor performance of transient metrics (relative to equilibrium response) as a metric of high-emission future warming in terms of their sensitivity to non-equilibrated initial conditions, and propose alternative metrics which better describe warming under high mitigation scenarios.
Benjamin Sanderson
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 563–577, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-563-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-563-2020, 2020
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Levels of future temperature change are often used interchangeably with carbon budget allowances in climate policy, a relatively robust relationship on the timescale of this century. However, recent advances in understanding underline that continued warming after net-zero emissions have been achieved cannot be ruled out by observations of warming to date. We consider here how such behavior could be constrained and how policy can be framed in the context of these uncertainties.
Reinhard Schiemann, Panos Athanasiadis, David Barriopedro, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Katja Lohmann, Malcolm J. Roberts, Dmitry V. Sein, Christopher D. Roberts, Laurent Terray, and Pier Luigi Vidale
Weather Clim. Dynam., 1, 277–292, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-277-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-277-2020, 2020
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In blocking situations the westerly atmospheric flow in the midlatitudes is blocked by near-stationary high-pressure systems. Blocking can be associated with extremes such as cold spells and heat waves. Climate models are known to underestimate blocking occurrence. Here, we assess the latest generation of models and find improvements in simulated blocking, partly due to increases in model resolution. These new models are therefore more suitable for studying climate extremes related to blocking.
Michael Wehner, Dáithí Stone, Dann Mitchell, Hideo Shiogama, Erich Fischer, Lise S. Graff, Viatcheslav V. Kharin, Ludwig Lierhammer, Benjamin Sanderson, and Harinarayan Krishnan
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 299–311, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-299-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-299-2018, 2018
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The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change challenged the scientific community to describe the impacts of stabilizing the global temperature at its 21st Conference of Parties. A specific target of 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels had not been seriously considered by the climate modeling community prior to the Paris Agreement. This paper analyzes heat waves in simulations designed for this target. We find there are reductions in extreme temperature compared to a 2 °C target.
Nadja Herger, Gab Abramowitz, Reto Knutti, Oliver Angélil, Karsten Lehmann, and Benjamin M. Sanderson
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 135–151, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-135-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-135-2018, 2018
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Users presented with large multi-model ensembles commonly use the equally weighted model mean as a best estimate, ignoring the issue of near replication of some climate models. We present an efficient and flexible tool that finds a subset of models with improved mean performance compared to the multi-model mean while at the same time maintaining the spread and addressing the problem of model interdependence. Out-of-sample skill and reliability are demonstrated using model-as-truth experiments.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Yangyang Xu, Claudia Tebaldi, Michael Wehner, Brian O'Neill, Alexandra Jahn, Angeline G. Pendergrass, Flavio Lehner, Warren G. Strand, Lei Lin, Reto Knutti, and Jean Francois Lamarque
Earth Syst. Dynam., 8, 827–847, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-827-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-827-2017, 2017
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We present the results of a set of climate simulations designed to simulate futures in which the Earth's temperature is stabilized at the levels referred to in the 2015 Paris Agreement. We consider the necessary future emissions reductions and the aspects of extreme weather which differ significantly between the 2 and 1.5 °C climate in the simulations.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Michael Wehner, and Reto Knutti
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 2379–2395, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2379-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2379-2017, 2017
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How should climate model simulations be combined to produce an overall assessment that reflects both their performance and their interdependencies? This paper presents a strategy for weighting climate model output such that models that are replicated or models that perform poorly in a chosen set of metrics are appropriately weighted. We perform sensitivity tests to show how the method results depend on variables and parameter values.
Laurent Bessières, Stéphanie Leroux, Jean-Michel Brankart, Jean-Marc Molines, Marie-Pierre Moine, Pierre-Antoine Bouttier, Thierry Penduff, Laurent Terray, Bernard Barnier, and Guillaume Sérazin
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1091–1106, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1091-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1091-2017, 2017
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A new, probabilistic version of an ocean modelling system has been implemented in order to simulate the chaotic and the atmospherically forced contributions to the ocean variability. For that purpose, a large ensemble of global hindcasts has been performed. Results illustrate the importance of the oceanic chaos on climate-related oceanic indices, and the relevance of such probabilistic ocean modelling approaches to anticipating the behaviour of the next generation of coupled climate models.
Allison H. Baker, Dorit M. Hammerling, Sheri A. Mickelson, Haiying Xu, Martin B. Stolpe, Phillipe Naveau, Ben Sanderson, Imme Ebert-Uphoff, Savini Samarasinghe, Francesco De Simone, Francesco Carbone, Christian N. Gencarelli, John M. Dennis, Jennifer E. Kay, and Peter Lindstrom
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 4381–4403, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-4381-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-4381-2016, 2016
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We apply lossy data compression to output from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble Community Project. We challenge climate scientists to examine features of the data relevant to their interests and identify which of the ensemble members have been compressed, and we perform direct comparisons on features critical to climate science. We find that applying lossy data compression to climate model data effectively reduces data volumes with minimal effect on scientific results.
Brian C. O'Neill, Claudia Tebaldi, Detlef P. van Vuuren, Veronika Eyring, Pierre Friedlingstein, George Hurtt, Reto Knutti, Elmar Kriegler, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Jason Lowe, Gerald A. Meehl, Richard Moss, Keywan Riahi, and Benjamin M. Sanderson
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3461–3482, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3461-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3461-2016, 2016
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The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) will provide multi-model climate projections based on alternative scenarios of future emissions and land use changes produced with integrated assessment models. The design consists of eight alternative 21st century scenarios plus one large initial condition ensemble and a set of long-term extensions. Climate model projections will facilitate integrated studies of climate change as well as address targeted scientific questions.
Related subject area
Topics: Other topics | Interactions: Other interactions | Methods: Earth system and climate modeling
Working at the limit: a review of thermodynamics and optimality of the Earth system
Axel Kleidon
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 861–896, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-861-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-861-2023, 2023
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The second law of thermodynamics has long intrigued scientists, but what role does it play in the Earth system? This review shows that its main role is that it shapes the conversion of sunlight into work. This work can then maintain the dynamics of the physical climate system, the biosphere, and human societies. The relevance of it is that apparently many processes work at their limits, directly or indirectly, so they become predictable by simple means.
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Short summary
The calibration of Earth system model parameters is a high-dimensionality problem subject to data, time, and computational constraints. In this study, we propose a practical solution for finding diverse near-optimal solutions. We argue that the effective degrees of freedom in the model performance response to parameter input is relatively small. Comparably performing parameter configurations exist and showcase different trade-offs in model errors, providing insights for model development.
The calibration of Earth system model parameters is a high-dimensionality problem subject to...
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