Publication Abstracts

Elling et al. 2024, submitted

Elling, M., A. Ruane, M. De Mel, J. Jonas, S. Kadam, N.Y. Kiang, K. Mezuman, L. Nazarenko, N. Pelaccio, M. Phillips, A. Romanou, and D. Rind, 2024: Evaluating Earth System Models with climate impact perspectives: A structured approach using NASA GISS ModelE. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., submitted.

Traditional evaluations of Earth system models focus on a limited set of climate diagnostics to capture large-scale energy, carbon, and mass balances, major modes of variability and anthropogenic emissions response. However, the growing climate model user community would benefit from additional model evaluation metrics directly aligned with climate impacts on nature and society and climate services applications. We propose a practical and broad-ranging framework for impacts-relevant model diagnostic evaluation and demonstrate it by comparing climatic impact-driver indices across versions of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, ModelE. This framework explores how shifts in model components, parameters, and resolutions may lead to unintended consequences that drive climate impacts. We apply the framework to analyze mean and extreme temperature, precipitation, wind, snow, ocean, and radiation diagnostics from eight ModelE configurations. Model biases arise from differences in physical parameters, experimental setups, and structural components, demonstrating that some model developments lead to improvements in certain areas and regressions in others. For instance, ModelE2.2, optimized for the middle atmosphere, shows cooler temperatures compared to other versions. ModelE3, with improved moist physics and a cubed sphere topology, reduces excess tropical warmth in sea surface temperatures but still struggles with Southern Ocean temperatures. In some cases, climatic impact-driver behavior is similar despite variations in specific model components, as seen in the lack of heavy rainfall events in South America. Although raw biases are evident, climatic impact-driver responses to climate change in some CIDs are relatively similar across model versions.

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BibTeX Citation

@unpublished{el03200x,
  author={Elling, M. and Ruane, A. and De Mel, M. and Jonas, J. and Kadam, S. and Kiang, N. Y. and Mezuman, K. and Nazarenko, L. and Pelaccio, N. and Phillips, M. and Romanou, A. and Rind, D.},
  title={Evaluating Earth System Models with climate impact perspectives: A structured approach using NASA GISS ModelE},
  year={2024},
  journal={Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems},
  note={Manuscript submitted for publication}
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - UNPB
ID  - el03200x
AU  - Elling, M.
AU  - Ruane, A.
AU  - De Mel, M.
AU  - Jonas, J.
AU  - Kadam, S.
AU  - Kiang, N. Y.
AU  - Mezuman, K.
AU  - Nazarenko, L.
AU  - Pelaccio, N.
AU  - Phillips, M.
AU  - Romanou, A.
AU  - Rind, D.
PY  - 2024
TI  - Evaluating Earth System Models with climate impact perspectives: A structured approach using NASA GISS ModelE
JA  - J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst.
JO  - Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
ER  -

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