Long-term Global Change Science Highlights
Implementing the UK's first Earth System Model
The National Centre for Atmospheric Science is leading the development of the UK’s state-of-the-art Earth System Model, called UKESM1. Scientists are using the model to run simulations of the Earth’s past, present and future climate, and projections for the next century will feed into global policy decisions.
An Earth System Model uses a large set of equations to simulate the global climate system, including the physical climate, the global carbon cycle, atmospheric chemistry, vegetation and land-based ice-sheets.
Following the development of UKESM1, the model is now being run in the first set of simulations for the Couple Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). CMIP is a worldwide project where scientists share, compare and analyse the outcomes of Earth System models and global climate models.
Currently, scientists use the model to run simulations of the historical climate, spanning the period from 1850 to present day. These computer experiments are based on observed concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, as well as estimates of man-made emissions of aerosol and aerosol precursors, human-induced land use change and emissions of other important trace gases.
Historical simulations provide an important opportunity to evaluate UKESM1 against a range of real-world observations, for instance from the Climatic Research Unit.
The historical simulations also provide a stepping-stone for using UKESM1 to make Earth System projections for the next century. These long-term projections use a range of plausible future greenhouse gas and aerosol emission pathways, combined with different assumptions about future land use.
Climate projections will help inform government policies worldwide through initiatives such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provides an internationally recognised authority on climate change.
The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS)
Major changes are occurring across the North Atlantic (NA) climate system: in ocean and atmosphere temperatures and circulation, in sea ice thickness and extent, and in key atmospheric constituents such as ozone, methane and aerosols.
Many observed changes are unprecedented in instrumental records. Changes in the NA directly affect the UK’s climate, weather and air quality, with major economic impacts on agriculture, fisheries, water, energy, transport and health. The NA also has global importance, since changes here drive changes in climate, hazardous weather and air quality further afield, such as in North America, Africa and Asia.
The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS) has been fully funded for five years (2016-2021) through NERC's Long Term Science commissioning, which aims to encourage its research centres to work closely together to tackle major scientific and societal challenges. ACSIS is one of the projects funded through this new way of allocating national capability funding, designed to enable more ambitious science than any single research organisation could provide.
Primavera: developing a new generation of high-resolution global climate models
CRESCENDO is a European Union Horizon 2020 Project that started in November 2015 and runs for five years. The primary aims of CRESCENDO are to improve the representation of key processes in European Earth system models, to thoroughly evaluate the scientific performance of these models and to use the models to generate a new set of Earth system projections for the coming century.
The CRESCENDO project, led by Prof Colin Jones from the University of Leeds facilitates a coordinated European contribution to the 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) where the climate research community compares a range of International Earth system models using common sets of experimental protocols, to improve our knowledge of the Earth’s climate processes and provide the best possible future projections to governments and decision-makers.
Coordinated Research in Earth Systems and Climate: Experiments, Knowledge, Dissemination and Outreach (Crescendo)
Primavera is a European Union Horizon2020 project which aims to develop a new generation of advanced and well-evaluated high-resolution global climate models, capable of simulating and predicting regional climate with unprecedented fidelity, for the benefit of governments, business and society in general.
The PRIMAVERA kick-off meeting took place at the Met Office between 23 and 26 November. The first half was held jointly with the companion project, CRESCENDO, while the second half was dedicated to PRIMAVERA and HighResMIP planning. Participants from the 19 institutions across Europe discussed around the five PRIMAVERA Themes and initiated work package interactions on process-based metrics and designing the simplified forcings that will be applied to HighResMIP experiments.
Long-term Global Change News
First results from the UKESM1 historical climate simulations
The UKESM1 DECK and historical runs are nearing completion and we (the UKESM core group and collaborators) have begun an initial analysis of first results. Early indications are that the model performs well, with a number of interesting features, which will keep us, and the UK Earth system science community busy for the next few years.