Jackson, LS orcid.org/0000-0001-8143-2777, Maycock, AC orcid.org/0000-0002-6614-1127, Andrews, T et al. (3 more authors) (2022) Errors in simple climate model emulations of past and future global temperature change. Geophysical Research Letters, 49 (15). e2022GL098808. ISSN 0094-8276
Abstract
Climate model emulators are widely used to generate temperature projections for climate scenarios, including in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report. Here we evaluate the performance of a two-layer energy balance model in emulating historical and future temperature projections from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 models. We find that emulation errors can be large (>0.5°C for SSP2-4.5) and differ markedly between climate models, forcing scenarios and time periods. Errors arise in emulating the near-surface temperature response to both greenhouse gas and aerosol forcing; in some periods the errors due to these forcings oppose one another, giving the spurious impression of better emulator performance. Climate feedbacks are assumed constant in the emulator, introducing time-varying or state dependent feedbacks may reduce prediction errors. Close emulations can be produced for a given period but, crucially, this does not guarantee reliable emulations of other scenarios and periods. Therefore, rigorous out-of-sample evaluation is necessary to characterize emulator performance.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | climate model emulation; out-of-sample; climate projections; temperature; energy balance model |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Aug 2022 13:53 |
Last Modified: | 04 Feb 2023 01:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Geophysical Union (AGU) |
Identification Number: | 10.1029/2022gl098808 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:189932 |