Initialized Decadal Predictions by LASG/IAP Climate System Model FGOALS-s2: Evaluations of Strengths and Weaknesses

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Abstract

Decadal prediction experiments are conducted by using the coupled global climate model FGOALS-s2, following the CMIP 5 protocol. The paper documents the initialization procedures for the decadal prediction experiments and summarizes the predictive skills of the experiments, which are assessed through indicators adopted by the IPCC AR5. The observational anomalies of surface and subsurface ocean temperature and salinity are assimilated through a modified incremental analysis update (IAU) scheme. Three sets of 10-year-long hindcast and forecast runs were started every five years in the period of 1960–2005, with the initial conditions taken from the assimilation runs. The decadal prediction experiment by FGOALS-s2 shows significant high predictive skills in the Indian Ocean, tropical western Pacific, and Atlantic, similar to the results of the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble. The predictive skills in the Indian Ocean and tropical western Pacific are primarily attributed to the model response to the external radiative forcing associated with the change of atmospheric compositions. In contrast, the high skills in the Atlantic are attributed, at least partly, to the improvements in the prediction of the Atlantic multidecadal variability coming from the initialization.

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An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design

Karl E. Taylor, Ronald J Stouffer, Gerald Meehl (2012)

The fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) will produce a state-of-the- art multimodel dataset designed to advance our knowledge of climate variability and climate change. Researchers worldwide are analyzing the model output and will produce results likely to underlie the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Unprecedented in scale and attracting interest from all major climate modeling groups, CMIP5 includes “long term” simulations of twentieth-century climate and projections for the twenty-first century and beyond. Conventional atmosphere–ocean global climate models and Earth system models of intermediate complexity are for the first time being joined by more recently developed Earth system models under an experiment design that allows both types of models to be compared to observations on an equal footing. Besides the longterm experiments, CMIP5 calls for an entirely new suite of “near term” simulations focusing on recent decades and the future to year 2035. These “decadal predictions” are initialized based on observations and will be used to explore the predictability of climate and to assess the forecast system's predictive skill. The CMIP5 experiment design also allows for participation of stand-alone atmospheric models and includes a variety of idealized experiments that will improve understanding of the range of model responses found in the more complex and realistic simulations. An exceptionally comprehensive set of model output is being collected and made freely available to researchers through an integrated but distributed data archive. For researchers unfamiliar with climate models, the limitations of the models and experiment design are described.