CMIP6 adds more value in simulating extreme temperatures in China

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Research News

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IMAGE: SUNSET AT BEIHAI PARK view more CREDIT: KEXIN CHEN

Against the background of global warming, more intense and frequent heat waves have brought huge impacts on humanity. As such, the characteristics of extreme temperature changes in the future have become a key concern of the climate change community. Climate models have provided an avenue for studying the possible changes in extreme temperatures in the future; and in this respect, to ease of comparison across models from different modelling groups worldwide, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) established the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), which is devoted to providing standardized climate simulation outputs for intercomparison purposes. However, there are still large uncertainties in the simulation results of different models. Particularly, when simulating temperature extremes in China, what the differences are between the models of the previous CMIP phase (CMIP5) and their more advanced versions in the current phase (CMIP6) is an important question.

Towards addressing this, researchers from Beijing Normal University selected 27 models from CMIP6 and CMIP5, respectively, and calculated eight extreme temperature indices as defined by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices. The simulation performances of different models in terms of their temporal and spatial distributions of extreme temperature were compared, and the results have recently been published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters.

According to this study, the CMIP6 models reproduce the spatial distributions of the annual maxima of the daily maximum temperature, annual minima of the daily minimum temperature, and frost days, better than CMIP5. However, the CMIP6 models still possess low skill in capturing warm days and cold nights, and in particular produce obvious cold biases or warm biases over the Tibetan Plateau. Furthermore, different versions of models from the same model organization were compared, and the advanced CMIP6 models were found to show no significant differences from their CMIP5 counterparts for some models.

Overall, compared to CMIP5 models, CMIP6 offers improved ways of simulating extreme temperatures in China. The simulation capabilities of some individual models in CMIP6 are obviously better than those of most other models. We can therefore trust these CMIP6 models to drive regional models to perform downscaling studies and project future extreme temperature changes.

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From EurekAlert!

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Schrodinger's Cat
November 16, 2020 10:18 am

Climate models have always been good at projecting extreme temperatures.

It is projecting the normal temperatures of reality that they can’t get right.

Philip
Reply to  Schrodinger's Cat
November 16, 2020 11:31 am

Perhaps chimp would be more accurate.
Sounds like they’re monkeying around.

Bryan A
Reply to  Philip
November 16, 2020 6:20 pm

That would be the
Coupled Harmonically Interactive Model Projections
Using the
Data Accuracy Resonance Thermograph

Yes
CHIMPs can predict the future climate with DARTs

LdB
Reply to  Bryan A
November 17, 2020 12:38 am

Apparently if you put enough of them in a room long enough they can produce the works of Shakespeare .. as it was only a short time the managed a bad Steven King novel.

Latitude
Reply to  Schrodinger's Cat
November 16, 2020 12:08 pm

6 is better than 5…..and it’s still garbage

However, the CMIP6 models still possess low skill…full stop

Reply to  Schrodinger's Cat
November 16, 2020 10:57 pm

“…which is devoted to providing standardized climate simulation outputs for intercomparison purposes…”
At the core of this drivel, I find that phrase. You guys realise, the actual aim here is to “standardise outputs”? These venal farkers are setting up a system whereby they can force their lies to conform to a “standardised output”, in other words, they have been caught so many times talking utter nonsense, they are now trying to standardise their bullshit, so us unbelievers will stop saying things like “…but last year you said it will be drier here and windier there…”
They are getting their shit together, so their bullshit at least agree with each others’ bullshit, making it more difficult for real science to interfere.
I think C.Rotter is either slipping us interesting facts, while taking the climate terrorists’ money, or he is a complete friggin’ idiot. But he does get paid to come up with scary stories, I am sure.
But we must watch out when our enemies start banding together under one flag…

Sara
Reply to  Schrodinger's Cat
November 17, 2020 4:28 am

Is there some reason they can’t just stick to forecasting the weather for agriculture?

Just askin’ for a friend.

Disputin
November 16, 2020 10:21 am

What drivel!

Reply to  Disputin
November 16, 2020 11:50 am

Drasputin

“What drivel!”

How can you say THAT.

I was unable to sleep at night worrying that the latest batch of computer games … er … climate models were NOT going to improve ways of simulating extreme temperatures in China. That would have been a catastrophe. Now I can sleep peacefully at night. And if I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man. This is a serious post, not sarcasm. I am a serious commontatter.

MarkW
Reply to  Disputin
November 16, 2020 1:37 pm

Once again, Disputin drops his load of poop and flies off.

I’ve asked this before, but I doubt you have ever stayed around long enough to read anything.

Would you care to actually present an argument to back up your opinion? Or are you one of those who just assume that the rest of us are supposed to be so cowed by your brilliant logic that we are unable to come up with any responses?

fred250
Reply to  Disputin
November 16, 2020 4:37 pm

Oh.. I thought Dis-spew was saying the models were a load of drivel.

That seemed the only logical response.

d
November 16, 2020 10:24 am

” We can therefore trust these CMIP6 models to drive regional models to perform downscaling studies and project future extreme temperature changes.”
Offered without data or records of testing. Trust, but verify.

Ian Magness
Reply to  d
November 16, 2020 10:33 am

How does a model “drive” a regional model? What twaddle.

Reply to  Ian Magness
November 16, 2020 12:19 pm

Global climate models are used to provide boundary conditions for regional climate models. That’s called downscaling. It’s never worked. It won’t work for CMIP6 models, either.

Ian Magness
November 16, 2020 10:31 am

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” – Sir Walter Scott from “Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field”, 1808.
I always think of this quote when I see supposedly scientific bodies wrapping themselves up in barbed wire over the computer models that – and call me a cynic – seem so error strewn and unfit for purpose regardless of how many of them you average out.

commieBob
November 16, 2020 10:36 am

We can therefore trust these CMIP6 models to drive regional models to perform downscaling studies and project future extreme temperature changes.

When we go to the actual paper, we don’t find such a claim. I think whoever wrote the press release had a tenuous grasp on the meaning of the original paper at best.

Press releases are a problem because the scientists can rightly claim they are being misrepresented. Even so, the press release is what the public actually sees. The public thinks the exaggerated and false claims in the press releases actually have the weight of scientific truth.

n.n
Reply to  commieBob
November 16, 2020 11:11 am

The press decide, steer elections. They hold public trials for civil, criminal, and social transgressions. Why shouldn’t the fourth estate also be a scientific arbiter, too.

Philo
Reply to  n.n
November 16, 2020 2:19 pm

The press should be the subject of much more scrutiny of “press” science”. From all I’ve seen, except for a FEW individual columnists who were/are fairly reasonable science-literate writers who did a pretty good job, the press reporting of science isn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a decent job of presenting something scientific as other than cheering or booing. The only presenter(not necessarily of science) I’ve seen is Joe Maher- as boorish as Trump and as off balance as Joe Biden.

Compared to the competition Maher at least some of the time presents a coherent position and can defend it. He may be missing somethings, but at least he has a position than can be debated.

It’s impossible to debate “your” feelings with “My feelings” because that is what most media presentations are. It amounts to “I DON’T LIKE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. YOUR WRONG!”

Ed Zuiderwijk
November 16, 2020 10:42 am

“more intense and frequent heatwaves”.

I stopped reading there.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
November 16, 2020 11:06 am

I didn’t even start 😀

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
November 16, 2020 11:25 am

Ed Zuiderwijk – 10:42 am
“more intense and frequent heatwaves”.
I stopped reading there.

Same here. Heat waves “schmeet waves” – Summer afternoons in the United States have been cooling for some time now here’s what that looks like:
comment image
The states in the Ohio River valley and a few others have seen afternoon cooling May to October since the 19th century.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
November 16, 2020 11:13 pm

….. repeat ad nauseam until it is just taken for granted without question.

To say otherwise is of course crimethink.

Charles Fairbairn
November 16, 2020 10:54 am

Overall the dead hand of politics prevails, preventing the rectification of passed errors of assumption and omission.
For instance the clouds and their thermodynamics behaviour have not been properly considered in either CMIP5 or now CMIP6. This being too inconvenient for the political message required.

Charles Fairbairn
Reply to  Charles Fairbairn
November 16, 2020 11:03 am

An addition to the above:
All that is being done here is to get enough scientists with rings through their noses to tweak the figures to emphasise the required message. The rest being ignored.

November 16, 2020 11:27 am

Didn’t I read by Rahmstorf, PIK, the models are all running to hot ?

Bruce Cobb
November 16, 2020 11:34 am

CHIMP 6 is the New and Improved Climate pig lipstick. Chimpelline: Maybe they’re born with it, maybe it’s Chimpelline.

Mr.
November 16, 2020 11:42 am

Does this paper address the only question that really matters these days –
are things WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT?

Reply to  Mr.
November 16, 2020 11:53 am

Ms.
Worse than worse than we thought.
Worse than we thought is so 2019.

Mr.
Reply to  Richard Greene
November 16, 2020 12:25 pm

Richard, my genital shrinkage in this cold weather must be worse than I thought 🙂

MarkW
Reply to  Mr.
November 16, 2020 8:31 pm

I wasn’t going to say anything, but your wife has been complaining.

Mr.
Reply to  MarkW
November 16, 2020 8:39 pm

#MeToo

Reply to  Mr.
November 17, 2020 8:41 am

Mr.
You need one of my patented “Expando Mirrors”.
Mainly used for self-esteem reasons.
Tax deductible. Free shipping.
You are failing to take the subject of climate models improving ways of simulating extreme temperatures in China seriously, as I do. This is a HUGE breakthrough. The world will never be the same.

pochas94
Reply to  Mr.
November 16, 2020 3:16 pm

How bad did we thought it was?

fred250
Reply to  Mr.
November 16, 2020 4:38 pm

Seems that the Chimp6 models are EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT !!

November 16, 2020 11:57 am

Doncha love that sunset picture

Be honest now.
See the reflection on the water: Does it, or does it not, drive a Coach & Horses through the notion of positively fedback Polar Amplification?

Also, why are Polaroid shades so useful when visiting the seaside (on a sunny day)
What exactly *is* the Albedo of the Sea Surface when viewed at any angle other than perpendicular?

This Climate Thing has got to be The Biggest Pile Of Shyte there ever was

fred250
Reply to  Peta of Newark
November 16, 2020 10:21 pm

“Doncha love that sunset picture”

Almost TOTAL external reflection.

Basically no energy in at all. !

November 16, 2020 11:59 am

selected 27 models from CMIP6 and CMIP5, respectively, and calculated eight extreme temperature indices as defined by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices.

Unremarkably, with enough model outputs then one or a few might in retrospect be found to have been “correct.” Except we have no way of knowing today which CMIP6 models are correct ones they are until enough time passes. Then they can point to the correct ones and claim “Eurekea” and claim success. This kind of stuff in the financial world is called fraud.

n.n
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
November 16, 2020 12:50 pm

It’s a third or fourth-order problem. They need a model to predict the model that will form a consensus with expectation and observation.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
November 16, 2020 12:55 pm

I know for certain that all the models used for the CMIP6 are incorrect. They predict things that are physically impossible on this planet. They have tropical ocean temperature exceeding 32C. That simply cannot happen on this planet; not in the next hundred years or the next million years if it continues to avoid a catastrophic collision.

This cannot happen:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icmip6_tasmax_Amon_BCC-CSM2-MR_ssp585_i1p1f1_-170–120E_5–5N_n_su_max_++_1980:2100.png

In fact it is even wrong in hindsight:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg3j-MHBpf4wRGuhf

Climate models are pure fantasy based on the fairy tale of “greenhouse effect”. They are such incompetent garbage that any real science community would be rejecting any rubbish they produce. I have no respect for anyone who perpetuates this absolute nonsense.

November 16, 2020 12:17 pm
November 16, 2020 12:48 pm

“Against the background of global warming, more intense and frequent heat waves have brought huge impacts on humanity.”

I stopped there.

Actual data (and science) does not support this BS, at least, not in the US :
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures

nor in China :

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3022136/china-scientists-warn-global-cooling-trick-natures-sleeve

https://www.thegwpf.com/chinese-scientists-warn-of-global-cooling-impact-of-solar-activity/

Lead scientist Dr Wu Jing, from the Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the study had found no evidence of human influence on northern China’s warming winters.

“Driving forces include the sun, the atmosphere, and its interaction with the ocean,” Wu said. “We have detected no evidence of human influence.

“As a result of the research findings, Wu said she was now more worried about cooling than warming.”

November 16, 2020 1:58 pm

We’re these models specifically timed for release with PlayStation 5? It would make sense.

Gerald Browning
November 16, 2020 5:50 pm

All,
To downscale means to attempt to compute smaller scales of motion using large scale boundary conditions from a global model. In particular this means computing mesoscale motions (horizontal length scale of ~ 100 km).
The problem here is that any error in the total heating/cooling parameterization is immediately translated into an error in the vertical velocity and thus the precip. And any error in the large scale boundary conditions destroys the interior solution (see Browning and Kreiss 2002).

Jerry