Comparisons of simulated radiation, surface wind stress and SST fields over tropical pacific by the GISS CMIP6 versions of global climate models with observations

Abstract

This study compares the overall performance between versions 2.1 and 3 of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global climate models (referred to as GISS-E2.1 and GISS-E3, respectively), in simulating the present-day Pacific climate using the CMIP6 protocol. Model physical representations and configurations are extensively changed from GISS-E2.1 to GISS-E3, which result in greatly reduced discrepancies, including ice water path (IWP), ice water content (IWC), radiative fluxes, surface wind stress (TAU), sea surface temperature (SST), precipitation (PR) and column water vapor (PRW), relative to satellite-based observational products over south Pacific oceans. Cloud only IWP (CIWP) shows the largest change, decreasing biases from ∼400 g kg ^−1 in GISS-E2.1 to 10–20 g kg ^−1 in GISS-E3. The combination of improved CIWP and the inclusion of snow in GISS-E3 may play roles on reducing overestimated outgoing longwave radiation, overestimated reflected shortwave at the top of atmosphere, and underestimated surface downward shortwave in GISS-E2.1. Both models’ intertropical convergence zones (ITCZs) are, however, located far too north of the equator, as found in radiative fluxes, PR and PRW but not in SST relative to observations. This introduces biases in TAU, PR and PRW over north flank of the equator and north Pacific. Over south Pacific, especially the trade wind regions, the improvements of radiation fluxes, SST, PR and PRW appear to be due to improved TAU associated with inclusion of snow-radiative effects. In particular, GISS-E3 reduces a longstanding too warm SST bias over trade-wind regions, from 4 K in GISS-E2.1 to within 0.5 K, and too cold SST bias over north Pacific Ocean. Although GISS-E3 shows improved geographic patterns of the simulated fields in particular over south Pacific oceans compared to GISS-E2.1, our results suggest that the location of ITCZ needs to be further improved.

Keywords

• GISS-E2.1
• GISS-E3
• tropical pacific climate
• ice water content
• radiation
• surface wind stress and sea surface temperatures