High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP v1.0) for CMIP6

By R. Haarsma, M. Roberts, P. Vidale, C. Senior, A. Bellucci, Q. Bao, Chang, S. Corti, Neven S. Fuckar, V. Guemas and 16 more. 2016

987 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. Robust projections and predictions of climate variability and change, particularly at regional scales, rely on the driving processes being represented with fidelity in model simulations. The role of enhanced horizontal resolution in improved process representation in all components of the climate system is of growing interest, particularly as some recent simulations suggest both the possibility of significant changes in large-scale aspects of circulation as well as improvements in small-scale processes and extremes. However, such high-resolution global simulations at climate timescales, with resolutions of at least 50 km in the atmosphere and 0.25° in the ocean, have been performed at relatively few research centres and generally without overall coordination, primarily due to their computational cost. Assessing the robustness of the response of simulated climate to model resolution requires a large multi-model ensemble using a coordinated set of experiments. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) is the ideal framework within which to conduct such a study, due to the strong link to models being developed for the CMIP DECK experiments and other model intercomparison projects (MIPs). Increases in high-performance computing (HPC) resources, as well as the revised experimental design for CMIP6, now enable a detailed investigation of the impact of increased resolution up to synoptic weather scales on the simulated mean climate and its variability. The High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP) presented in this paper applies, for the first time, a multi-model approach to the systematic investigation of the impact of horizontal resolution. A coordinated set of experiments has been designed to assess both a standard and an enhanced horizontal-resolution simulation in the atmosphere and ocean. The set of HighResMIP experiments is divided into three tiers consisting of atmosphere-only and coupled runs and spanning the period 1950–2050, with the possibility of extending to 2100, together with some additional targeted experiments. This paper describes the experimental set-up of HighResMIP, the analysis plan, the connection with the other CMIP6 endorsed MIPs, as well as the DECK and CMIP6 historical simulations. HighResMIP thereby focuses on one of the CMIP6 broad questions, “what are the origins and consequences of systematic model biases?”, but we also discuss how it addresses the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) grand challenges.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/154a0c996b0a62a6d96c60327e72d60ff6269ea6

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Citations in the corpus

Developments in the MPI‐M Earth System Model version 1.2 (MPI‐ESM1.2) and Its Response to Increasing CO2 (2019, methodology): “2-XR with further enhanced atmospheric horizontal resolution has been devised for participation in HighResMIP (Haarsma et al., 2016).”
Global Mean Climate and Main Patterns of Variability in the CMCC‐CM2 Coupled Model (2018, methodology): “In particular, for HighResMIP (Haarsma et al., 2016) ad hoc versions of CMCC-CM2 have been implemented, using CAM4 with a prescribed anthropogenic aerosols formulation (Stevens et al., 2017) at two different horizontal resolutions (1° and ¼°), coupled to an eddy-permitting (1/4°) NEMO ocean configur”
Structure and Performance of GFDL's CM4.0 Climate Model (2019, methodology): “We experimented with a mesoscale closure that sets in at the point at which the first deformation radius is unresolved, as described by Hallberg (2013), and also an energy backscatter scheme following Jansen et al. (2015), to improve the simulation of marginally resolved eddy fields, both of which…”
Neural operators for accelerating scientific simulations and design (2023, neutral): “This is because simple interpolation schemes cannot capture finer scales that are not present in limited-resolution training data.”
Simulations for CMIP6 With the AWI Climate Model AWI‐CM‐1‐1 (2020, methodology): “At the time of writing, AWI‐CM results from the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP; Smith et al., 2019), and results with AWI‐CM‐1‐1‐HR from the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP; Haarsma et al., 2016) are available as well (Semmler et al., 2017, 2019).”
The DOE E3SM Coupled Model Version 1: Description and Results at High Resolution (2019, methodology): “Aside from LRv1, all coupled E3SMv1 simulations described in this paper use time-invariant 1950 forcings and follow the HighResMIP protocol of Haarsma et al. (2016) as closely as possible.”
Climate change increased extreme monsoon rainfall, flooding highly vulnerable communities in Pakistan (2023, background): “Notably, across Sindh and Balochistan, there has been an outbreak in waterborne disease such as diarrhoea and cholera, as well as skin and eye infections, malaria, and fever (IRC 2022). Pakistan is one of the countries that are most at risk of climate extremes according to German Watch (2021) and ha”
Quantifying Progress Across Different CMIP Phases With the ESMValTool (2020, methodology): “Also, because of the shorter simulation period starting from observed initial conditions in 1950 in HighResMIP, compared to starting in 1850 from a preindustrial spun ‐ up state for the CMIP6 historical simulations, better agreement of the HighResMIP simulations with observations can be expected.”