These funds support a Workshop entitled 'Next generation climate change experiments needed to advance knowledge and for assessment of CMIP6' organized by the Aspen Global Change Institute. As we approach the end of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change fifth assessment report (IPCC AR5) process and the culmination of the extensive model intercomparison exercise of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), emerging gaps in scientific understanding lead to opportunities for new climate model experiments that explore aspects of the science best addressed through a coordinated set of model experiments. This workshop will set the initial planning for a possible CMIP6. The current timing affords a unique opportunity to assess the accomplishments and outstanding issues with the CMIP5 process and use this to help inform the development of experimental design and research directions that can be considered for inclusion in the CMIP6 process. The range of interesting and useful science questions include the following: (i) Land use -aerosols-ESM applications-interact with a couple of the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) that show quite different outcomes from RCPs; (ii) Reversibility or geo-engineering; (iii) More idealized experiments, e.g. 1% runs but for other forcings, idealized aerosol, ozone, land use, like the 1% runs; (iv) Decadal prediction and extremes; (v) Systematic biases; (vi) Very high resolution time slice experiments for tropical cyclones and other aspects of storms and circulation changes; (vii) Higher resolution coupled simulations for tropical cyclones, extremes, and circulation changes; and (viii) Coupled land ice for better estimates of global and regional sea level rise.
The workshop will directly benefit agencies of the USGCRP and their contribution to the advancement of climate projections and predictability and the scientific process leading up to the future international assessments.
Scientists from around the world and program managers at the funding agencies are now actively preparing for a next generation of Earth system models to incorporate into an international framework for model intercomparison known as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). In August 2013 with the support of the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies, the Aspen Global Change Institute hosted 32 scientists representing major climate modeling centers in the U.S. and abroad to participate in a workshop entitled, "Next Generation Climate Change Experiments Needed to Advance Knowledge and for Assessment of CMIP6." The workshop included a diverse set of disciplines and communities critically important to the development success of CMIP6. These groups included climate modelers, carbon cycle/earth system modelers, integrated assessment modelers, and social scientists. Some of the science issues that were explored at this meeting included: Land use change and aerosol chemistry Geo-engineering Idealized experiments, e.g. 1% runs for other forcings such as idealized aerosol, ozone, land use Decadal prediction and extremes Systematic biases Very high resolution time slice experiments for tropical cyclones and other aspects of storms and circulation changes Higher resolution coupled simulations for tropical cyclones, extremes, and circulation changes Coupled land ice for better estimates of global and regional sea level rise The principal outcome of the meeting was a conceptual framework for exploring these type of science questions as well as others in a coordinated, yet distributed, fashion, where individual "MIPs" or Model Intercomparison Projects conduct focused modeling experiments in areas such as land use (LUMIP), aerosol chemistry (AerChemMIP), or geoengineering (GeoMIP) while all modeling centers conduct a common set of model runs. The conclusions of this meeting were presented at a Fall 2013 meeting of the World Climate Research Program’s Working Group on Couple Modeling (WCRP WGCM) meeting in Victoria, Canada and subsequently published in the March 4, 2014 issue of Eos.
