An assessment of historical Antarctic precipitation and temperature trend using CMIP5 models and reanalysis datasets

• Published in: Polar Science
• Main Authors: Tang, Malcolm Siong Yii, Chenoli, Sheeba Nettukandy, Samah, Azizan Abu, Ooi, See Hai
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 2018
• Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation; Q Science (General); Antarctic; Merra; Antarc*; Antarctica; Polar Science
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/20510/; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polar.2018.01.001

The study of Antarctic precipitation has attracted a lot of attention recently. The reliability of climate models in simulating Antarctic precipitation, however, is still debatable. This work assess the precipitation and surface air temperature (SAT) of Antarctica (90 oS to 60 oS) using 49 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts “Interim” reanalysis (ERA-Interim); the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR); the Japan Meteorological Agency 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55); and the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) datasets for 1979–2005 (27 years). For precipitation, the time series show that the MERRA and JRA-55 have significantly increased from 1979 to 2005, while the ERA-Int and CFSR have insignificant changes. The reanalyses also have low correlation with one another (generally less than +0.69). 37 CMIP5 models show increasing trend, 18 of which are significant. The resulting CMIP5 MMM also has a significant increasing trend of 0.29 ± 0.06 mm year−1. For SAT, the reanalyses show insignificant changes and have high correlation with one another, while the CMIP5 MMM shows a significant increasing trend. Nonetheless, the variability of precipitation and SAT of MMM could affect the significance of its trend. One of the many reasons for the large differences of precipitation is the CMIP5 models' resolution.