How well do CMIP5 Earth System Models simulate present climate conditions in Europe and Africa? A performance comparison for the downscaling community

• Published in: Climate dynamics Vol. 41; no. 3-4; pp. 803 - 817
• Main Authors: Brands, S., Herrera, S., Fernández, J., Gutiérrez, J. M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-08-2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Atmospheric circulation; Climate change; Climate models; Climatic conditions; Climatology; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; General circulation models; Geophysics. Techniques, methods, instrumentation and models; Geophysics/Geodesy; Meteorology; Oceanography; Europe; Africa; South Africa; MED, Western Mediterranean; MED; ANE, Europe; Japan; INW, Japan; CMIP5; Present climate; Europe; Africa; Downscaling; Performance; Earth System Models; Performance evaluation; Multimodel; Coupled model; General circulation models; Scale reduction; Climate models; digital simulation; Verification; Dynamic method; Atmospheric temperature; statistical analysis; atmospheric circulation; Comparative study; Atmospheric humidity
• ISSN: 0930-7575; 1432-0894
• DOI: 10.1007/s00382-013-1742-8

The present study assesses the ability of seven Earth System Models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 to reproduce present climate conditions in Europe and Africa. This is done from a downscaling perspective, taking into account the requirements of both statistical and dynamical approaches. ECMWF’s ERA-Interim reanalysis is used as reference for an evaluation of circulation, temperature and humidity variables on daily timescale, which is based on distributional similarity scores. To additionally obtain an estimate of reanalysis uncertainty, ERA-Interim’s deviation from the Japanese Meteorological Agency JRA-25 reanalysis is calculated. Areas with considerable differences between both reanalyses do not allow for a proper assessment, since ESM performance is sensitive to the choice of reanalysis. For use in statistical downscaling studies, ESM performance is computed on the grid-box scale and mapped over a large spatial domain covering Europe and Africa, additionally highlighting those regions where significant distributional differences remain even for the centered/zero-mean time series. For use in dynamical downscaling studies, performance is specifically assessed along the lateral boundaries of the three CORDEX domains defined for Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and Africa.