S-CMIP: Swedish climate modelling and contributions to international projects
Abstract
The warming of the Earth continues with unprecedented speed and the 12-month average of the global mean temperature has now for the first time in modern time exceeded 1.5 Celsius compared to pre-industrial values. To improve understanding of the risks and consequences related to the ongoing climate change, climate models are a central tool. The goal of S-CMIP is to better describe and understand the Earth system (including e.g. interactive vegetation, the carbon cycle, polar ice sheets), its response to changes in greenhouse gas forcing and land-use, its internal variability and the interactions between Earth system components. Scientific progress in these areas and in the science of prediction and projection methods will enable actionable information on climate change in the fields of climate change adaptation (adjustment to a new climate) and mitigation (control of greenhouse gas emissions).
International climate simulations to address the above questions are coordinated by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). The CMIP standards and infrastructure, such as data upload to CMIPs data grid (ESGF), are increasingly used for projects beyond CMIP as well, which is boosting international across-model climate studies. The 6th phase of CMIP has come to an end but updated CMIP6-models are used for additional simulations to explore knowledge gaps that have been identified in the 6th IPCC Assessment Report, and to further improve understanding of the Earth system and its ongoing and future change.
At the same time, ESM development for the upcoming next round of CMIP, CMIP7, is in full swing.
S-CMIP will carry out numerical climate model simulations connected to research projects funded by European and Swedish agencies. The simulations will further understanding of processes in the Earth system with a particular focus on the risk of exceeding tipping points, the efficacy of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, interactions between Earth system components, extremes and the regional impacts. ESM simulations will also increasingly target the effect of overshooting the warming targets of the Paris Agreement. As another line of understanding, past periods will be investigated to learn from the past for the future. All projects are externally scientifically reviewed, are considered state of the art and are expected to generate publications by S-CMIP members.
