GFDL's Contribution to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project

Coupled Model Intercomparison Project  (CMIP) is an international effort to improve climate models by comparing multiple model simulations to observations and to each other.  These comparisons can help our understanding of past and future climate changes, and also lead to climate model improvements.

CMIP falls under the direction of the Working Group on Coupled Modeling, an activity of the World Climate Research Program. CMIP has coordinated four past large model intercomparison projects. Most have been extensively used in the various Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports since 1990. The Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, CMIP, will be used in support of the 5th assessment report (AR5) of the IPCC, expected to be published in 2013.

For CMIP5, GFDL has continued to build on its past successful climate modeling efforts, particularly those associated with the IPCC 4th Assessment. As our work began for CMIP5, it was evident that it was not practical for us to incorporate all important avenues we were pursuing, into a single comprehensive climate model. The strategy that evolved was to proceed developing several distinct modeling streams on the timescale of CMIP5 and AR5, and to postpone the attempt to incorporate all of these efforts into a single comprehensive model until after AR5.

Our model development goal beyond CMIP5 and for the next several years is to take what we have learned from these diverse modeling activities and create a new comprehensive Earth System model.

As a result we have several distinct contributions to CMIP5, as described below:

CM3

Our CMIP5 experiments with CM3 included many of the integrations found in the long-term CMIP5 experimental design. The focus of this physical climate model is on the role of aerosols, aerosol-cloud interactions, and atmospheric chemistry in climate variability and climate change.

Two Earth System Models (ESM) 

Our CMIP5 experiments with Earth System Models included many of the integrations found in the long-term CMIP5 experimental design. The ESMs, by design, close the carbon cycle and are used to study the impact of climate change on ecosystems, ecosystem changes on climate and human activities on ecosystems.

HiRAM 

HiRAM integrated the "time slice" experiments which are part of both the near- and long-term CMIP5 experimental design. HiRAM is a high resolution model of the atmosphere and land surface, with the ocean surface conditions prescribed. It is used to investigate regional climate change, as well as past and future changes in hurricane activity and other extreme weather events.

Decadal prediction

The decadal prediction experiments are designed to assess the predictability of climate (natural and forced) changes on time scales up to 10 years. GFDL used the CM2.1 model to perform these experiments, which are part of the near-term CMIP5 experimental design.