Frontiers in Climate (Sep 2022)
Attribution of multi-annual to decadal changes in the climate system: The Large Ensemble Single Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (LESFMIP)
- Doug M. Smith,
- Nathan P. Gillett,
- Isla R. Simpson,
- Panos J. Athanasiadis,
- Johanna Baehr,
- Ingo Bethke,
- Tarkan A. Bilge,
- Rémy Bonnet,
- Olivier Boucher,
- Kirsten L. Findell,
- Guillaume Gastineau,
- Silvio Gualdi,
- Leon Hermanson,
- L. Ruby Leung,
- Juliette Mignot,
- Wolfgang A. Müller,
- Scott Osprey,
- Scott Osprey,
- Odd Helge Otterå,
- Geeta G. Persad,
- Adam A. Scaife,
- Adam A. Scaife,
- Gavin A. Schmidt,
- Hideo Shiogama,
- Rowan T. Sutton,
- Rowan T. Sutton,
- Didier Swingedouw,
- Shuting Yang,
- Tianjun Zhou,
- Tianjun Zhou,
- Tilo Ziehn
Affiliations
- Doug M. Smith
- Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom
- Nathan P. Gillett
- Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, BC, Canada
- Isla R. Simpson
- Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States
- Panos J. Athanasiadis
- Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Bologna, Italy
- Johanna Baehr
- Institute of Oceanography, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN), Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- Ingo Bethke
- Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway
- Tarkan A. Bilge
- Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway
- Rémy Bonnet
- LOCEAN Laboratory, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France
- Olivier Boucher
- LOCEAN Laboratory, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France
- Kirsten L. Findell
- Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA, Princeton, NJ, United States
- Guillaume Gastineau
- LOCEAN Laboratory, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France
- Silvio Gualdi
- Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Bologna, Italy
- Leon Hermanson
- Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom
- L. Ruby Leung
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Richland, WA, United States
- Juliette Mignot
- LOCEAN Laboratory, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France
- Wolfgang A. Müller
- 0Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Hamburg, Germany
- Scott Osprey
- 1National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Oxford, United Kingdom
- Scott Osprey
- 2Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- Odd Helge Otterå
- Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway
- Geeta G. Persad
- 3Department of Geological Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
- Adam A. Scaife
- Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom
- Adam A. Scaife
- 4College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Exeter University, Exeter, United Kingdom
- Gavin A. Schmidt
- 5NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, United States
- Hideo Shiogama
- 6Earth System Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Japan
- Rowan T. Sutton
- 7National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Leeds, United Kingdom
- Rowan T. Sutton
- 8Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
- Didier Swingedouw
- 9CNRS-EPOC, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac, France
- Shuting Yang
- 0Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Tianjun Zhou
- 1State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Tianjun Zhou
- 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Tilo Ziehn
- 3CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Aspendale Gardens, VIC, Australia
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.955414
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 4
Abstract
Multi-annual to decadal changes in climate are accompanied by changes in extreme events that cause major impacts on society and severe challenges for adaptation. Early warnings of such changes are now potentially possible through operational decadal predictions. However, improved understanding of the causes of regional changes in climate on these timescales is needed both to attribute recent events and to gain further confidence in forecasts. Here we document the Large Ensemble Single Forcing Model Intercomparison Project that will address this need through coordinated model experiments enabling the impacts of different external drivers to be isolated. We highlight the need to account for model errors and propose an attribution approach that exploits differences between models to diagnose the real-world situation and overcomes potential errors in atmospheric circulation changes. The experiments and analysis proposed here will provide substantial improvements to our ability to understand near-term changes in climate and will support the World Climate Research Program Lighthouse Activity on Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change.
Keywords
- decadal climate
- attribution
- external forcings
- large ensembles
- model intercomparison
- Lighthouse Activity
