Sneak preview of EoMIP modelling study

By  Dr Dan Lunt

Part of the ‘Descent into the Icehouse‘ project involves assessing the ability of climate models to reproduce past climates.

This involves comparing model results with reconstructions based on various proxy indicators of climate.  Up until now, this has been done in a very ad-hoc fashion, with different modelling groups using different proxy data, and different evaluation metrics.  The EoMIP (Eocene Modelling Intercomparison Project), led by project member Dan Lunt, aims to address these issues.

The image below shows early results from EoMIP.  Some of the climate models, when high enough levels of CO2 are prescribed, can do a very good job of reproducing the proxy data.  However, other models are less successful.  As part of the Descent into the Icehouse project, we will be aiming to improve the CO2 estimates, so that model simulations which only give good results with unrealistic levels of CO2, can be rejected, and less weight given to their predictions of future climate .

 

 

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