The impact of structural error on parameter constraint in a climate model

McNeall, Doug; Williams, Jonny; Booth, Ben; Betts, Richard; Challenor, Peter; Wiltshire, Andy; Sexton, David

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-917-2016

Articles | Volume 7, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-917-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-917-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 4

Research article

|

24 Nov 2016

Research article |

| 24 Nov 2016

The impact of structural error on parameter constraint in a climate model

Doug McNeall, Jonny Williams, Ben Booth, Richard Betts, Peter Challenor, Andy Wiltshire, and David Sexton

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Final revised paper (published on 24 Nov 2016)
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Preprint (discussion started on 29 Apr 2016)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC1: 'Graphics', Roderick Campbell, 31 May 2016
- SC2: 'Response to R. Campbell', Douglas McNeall, 31 May 2016
RC1: 'Review of McNeall et al', Anonymous Referee #1, 20 Jun 2016
- AC1: 'Response to anonymous reviewer 1', Douglas McNeall, 26 Aug 2016
RC2: 'Review and discussion of McNeall et al.', Richard Wilkinson, 22 Jun 2016
- AC2: 'Response to review by Richard Wilkinson', Douglas McNeall, 26 Aug 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (05 Sep 2016) by James Annan

AR by Douglas McNeall on behalf of the Authors (07 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (07 Nov 2016) by James Annan

AR by Douglas McNeall on behalf of the Authors (08 Nov 2016)

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Short summary

We compare simulated with observed forests to constrain uncertain input parameters of the land surface component of a climate model. We find that the model is unlikely to be able to simulate the Amazon and other major forests simultaneously at any one parameter set, suggesting a bias in the model's representation of the Amazon. We find we cannot constrain parameters individually, but we can rule out large areas of joint parameter space.