World Climate Research ProgrammeData support to IPCC Assessments

GEOSS support for IPCC AssessmentsWorkshop 1-4 February 2011

Valery DetemmermanWCRP

OutlineOutline

• Climate Projections– Global– Regional

• Observational data sets

• Reanalyses and reprocessing

• Challenges

WCRP SPONSORS: WMO, IOC of UNESCO, ICSU

Joint Scientific Committee Joint Planning Staff for WCRP

PROJECTS MODELLING OBS&Analysis CROSS CUTS

•● CliC ● WGCM ● WOAP ● Anthropogenic Climate Change

• ● CLIVAR ● WGNE (w/GCOS) ● Regional Climate Downscaling• ● GEWEX (w/WWRP) ● Seasonal Climate Prediction• ● SPARC ● Decadal Variability, Predictability • ● Sea-level Variability and

Change • ● Climate Extremes• ● Atmospheric

chemistry,Dynamics ● Monsoon and Climate

Climate Projections - Interest in

WCRP PCMDI CMIP3 results

continues unabated!

• More than 550 peer- reviewed publications.

• ~1 Pbyte of data downloaded .

• More than 3,000 registered users.

20102004

1 TB

Daily Download Rate

Climate Projections Progress CMIP3 to CMIP5:

• More experiments to quantify model sensitivity and feedbacks.

• Earth System Models - interactive carbon cycle, atmospheric chemistry, ozone chemistry, land-surface schemes (with IGBP AIMES).

• Increased Resolution - including NWP models, eddy permitting ocean models, stratosphere-resolving atmospheric models

• Decadal prediction experiments to test a variety of initialization techniques

Climate Projections

CMIP5 participating groups (20+ groups; ~40 models).

2.3Pbytes of model output expected - 100 times greater than CMIP3.

Model data will be accessed by the Earth System Grid - output will be served by federated centers around the world and will appear to be a single PCMDI archive.

CMIP5 - Unprecedented International Coordination

Regional Climate Downscaling Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)

High-quality, region specific, climate projections for most regions in the world.

First priority is to develop a comprehensive and high resolutions climate change data set for Africa.

•CORDEX archive at Danish Meteorological Institute

CORDEX domainsCORDEX domains

NARCCAPNARCCAP

CLARISCLARIS

ENSEMBLESENSEMBLES RCMIPRCMIP

Arctic

Antarctic

Education and Education and Capacity DevelopmentCapacity Development

Climate Observations and Regional Modelling in Support of Climate Risk Managements and Sustainable Development of the countries of the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). Three workshops

•demonstrate the use and value of regional models, • provide advice on model limitations•improve capabilities across the GHA for using data records and model projections for adaptation planning in particular for the agriculture/food security and water resources sectors.

WCRP GEWEX Climate Data Records

• climate data records of global water and energy variables such as clouds, radiation, aerosols, precipitation etc., complete with metadata and error analysis.

• blend of satellite and in-situ observations covering in most cases more than 25 years.

• periodic comparison and assessment against other products in an open and transparent fashion and are available to everyone without restrictions.  

 

1979 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Parameter

Clouds

Water Vapor

TOA Radiation

Precipitation

SRF Radiation

Atmospheric Circulation

Evaporation

TIME

GEWEX Available Global DatasetsPentad

Daily

3 – 6 hrs

50 km

250 km

100 km

50 km

50 km

100 km

100 km

Arctic Sea-Ice Variability and Change

Sea-Level Variability and Change

Focus 1 : Improve understanding of the risk of higher mean sea-level rise in the 21st century, and Antarctica and Greenland contributions.

Focus 2 : Regional sea-level rise and coastal impacts.

Extreme Events and Climate Change

Bars show changes for the18 CMIP3 model ensemble (27 seasons); dots show range of change across 4 individual CMIP models (13 seasons).

Cat 4+5 frequency: 81% increase, or 10% per decade

Bender et al., Science, 2010

Estimated net impact of these changes on damage potential:

+28%

Droughts

Climate Model Evaluation Project (DRICOMP)

SSTA patterns Implications for future global droughts

Courtesy of Kirsten Findell (GFDL-NOAA-USA)

• 4 major reanalyses groups: JMA, NOAA, NASA, ECMWF

• Many reanalyses on going - ASR | ERA-40 | ERA-Interim | JRA-25 | NASA MERRA |  NCEP CFSR | NCEP/DOE II  | NCEP/NCAR I | NCEP NARR | NOAA-CIRES 20CR

• WCRP Observations and Assimilation Panel has special WG (with GCOS) to help coordinate these efforts

• The goal of reanalyses.org is to facilitate comparison between reanalysis and observational datasets

Atmospheric Reanalyses

• Many users:– > 10000 registered users via

ECMWF public data services–≳5M fields retrieved daily by

ECMWF and Member-State users– National mirror sites for ERA in

many countries

• And many citations:– Paper on NCEP/NCAR reanalysis is

most cited paper in geosciences– Paper on ERA-40 is most cited

recently in the geosciences– Many references in IPCC Fourth

Assessment report

Atmospheric reanalysis: The user base

• “Observations” for verification and diagnosis– Forecast model development, calibration of seasonal forecasting systems, climate model development; use of data assimilation

increments for identifying model errors

• Input data for model applications– for smaller-scales (global→regional; regional→local), ocean circulation, chemical transport, nuclear dispersion, crop yield, health

warnings, …

• Study of short-term atmospheric processes and influences– process of drying of air entering stratosphere, bird migration, …

• Providing climatologies– ocean waves, resources for wind and solar power generation, …

• Assessment of the observing system– providing feedback on observational quality, bias corrections and a basis for homogenization studies; contributing to data reprocessing

activities

• Study of longer-term climate variability and trends– used with caution in conjunction with observational studies– downstream climate services?

Science applications that rely on reanalysis data

Reanalysis data produced at ECMWF

ERA-15: 1979 – 1993ERA-40: 1957 – 2001ERA-Interim: 1989 onwards

ORA-S3: 1959 onwardsMACC: 2003 – 2010

ERA-CLIM:European Reanalysis of Global Climate Observations

An EU project to help prepare the next ECMWF reanalysis

ERA-20C: 1900 onwards

focus on pre-1957 meteorological data in sensitive regions

ERA-CLIM data recovery and digitization

Ocean reanalysisARGO floats XBT (eXpandable

BathyThermograph)

Moorings

Satellite

SST

Sea Level

WCRP data for IPCC

• Model output

• Observations

• Analyses: Comparison of observations with models

Summary

Challenges• Stewardship and continuity of existing

observing networks

• New observing systems (e.g., deep ocean, upper atmosphere, cryosphere)

• Open and timely access to observed data