Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) v2.0 – diagnostics for emergent constraints and future projections from Earth system models in CMIP

The Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool), a community diagnostics and performance metrics tool for evaluation and analysis of Earth system models (ESMs), is designed to facilitate a more comprehensive and rapid comparison of single or multiple models participating in the Coupled Model Int...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lauer, Axel, Eyring, Veronika, Bellprat, Omar, Bock, Lisa, Gier, Bettina K., Hunter, Alasdair Hunter, Pérez-Zanón, Núria
Other Authors: Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2117/364647
Description
Summary:The Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool), a community diagnostics and performance metrics tool for evaluation and analysis of Earth system models (ESMs), is designed to facilitate a more comprehensive and rapid comparison of single or multiple models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). The ESM results can be compared against observations or reanalysis data as well as against other models including predecessor versions of the same model. The updated and extended version (v2.0) of the ESMValTool includes several new analysis scripts such as large-scale diagnostics for evaluation of ESMs as well as diagnostics for extreme events, regional model and impact evaluation. In this paper, the newly implemented climate metrics such as effective climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR) as well as emergent constraints for various climate-relevant feedbacks and diagnostics for future projections from ESMs are described and illustrated with examples using results from the well-established model ensemble CMIP5. The emergent constraints implemented include constraints on ECS, snow-albedo effect, climate–carbon cycle feedback, hydrologic cycle intensification, future Indian summer monsoon precipitation and year of disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice. The diagnostics included in ESMValTool v2.0 to analyze future climate projections from ESMs further include analysis scripts to reproduce selected figures of chapter 12 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and various multi-model statistics. This research has been supported by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (CRESCENDO (grant no. 641816), 4C (grant no. 821003), and IS-ENES3 (grant no. 824084)), the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (Metrics and Access to Global Indices for Climate Change Projections (MAGIC)), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (CMIP6-DICAD), the European Space Agency (ESA Climate Change Initiative Climate Model User Group (ESA CCI CMUG)) and the Helmholtz Association (Advanced Earth System Model Evaluation for CMIP (EVal4CMIP)). Peer Reviewed "Article signat per 13 autors/es: Axel Lauer, Veronika Eyring, Omar Bellprat, Lisa Bock, Bettina K. Gier, Alasdair Hunter, Ruth Lorenz, Núria Pérez-Zanón, Mattia Righi, Manuel Schlund, Daniel Senftleben, Katja Weigel, and Sabrina Zechlau" Postprint (published version)