The Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (RFMIP): Experimental Protocol for CMIP6 (in open review: 10.5194/gmd-2016-88)

By Robert Pincus, Piers M. Forster, Bjorn Stevens. 2016

252 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. The phrasing of the first of three questions motivating CMIP6 – “How does the Earth system respond to forcing?” – suggests that forcing is always well-known, yet the radiative forcing to which this question refers has historically been uncertain in coordinated experiments even as understanding of how best to infer radiative forcing has evolved. The Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (RFMIP) endorsed by CMIP6 seeks to provide a foundation for answering the question through three related activities: (i) accurate characterization of the effective radiative forcing relative to a near-preindustrial baseline and careful diagnosis of the components of this forcing; (ii) assessment of the absolute accuracy of clear-sky radiative transfer parameterizations against reference models on the global scales relevant for climate modeling; and (iii) identification of robust model responses to tightly specified aerosol radiative forcing from 1850 to present. Complete characterization of effective radiative forcing can be accomplished with 180 years (Tier 1) of atmosphere-only simulation using a sea-surface temperature and sea ice concentration climatology derived from the host model's preindustrial control simulation. Assessment of parameterization error requires trivial amounts of computation but the development of small amounts of infrastructure: new, spectrally detailed diagnostic output requested as two snapshots at present-day and preindustrial conditions, and results from the model's radiation code applied to specified atmospheric conditions. The search for robust responses to aerosol changes relies on the CMIP6 specification of anthropogenic aerosol properties; models using this specification can contribute to RFMIP with no additional simulation, while those using a full aerosol model are requested to perform at least one and up to four 165-year coupled ocean–atmosphere simulations at Tier 1.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eeca98720dd9cc06679591075433c053959c0eb6

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Citations in the corpus

Recommendations for diagnosing effective radiative forcing from climate models for CMIP6 (2016, methodology): “RECOMMENDED EFFECTIVE RADIATIVE FORCING 12,461 diagnosis methods employed as part of the Radiative Forcing and Aerosol-Chemistry MIPs associated with CMIP6 (RFMIP [Pincus et al., 2016 and AerChemMIP [Collins et al., 2016], respectively).”
The GFDL Earth System Model Version 4.1 (GFDL‐ESM 4.1): Overall Coupled Model Description and Simulation Characteristics (2020, background): “…Collins et al., 2017), land use (LUMIP; Lawrence et al., 2016), ocean biogeochemistry (OMIP‐BGC; Orr et al., 2017), carbon dioxide removal (CDRMIP; Keller et al., 2018), radiative forcing (RFMIP; Pincus et al., 2016), and detection and attribution (DAMIP; Gillett et al., 2016) among others.”
The GFDL Global Atmosphere and Land Model AM4.0/LM4.0: 1. Simulation Characteristics With Prescribed SSTs (2018, background): “Given fixed preindustrial (PI) and present-day (PD) forcing agents we can utilize a set of atmospheric only experiments to derive important model properties which measure a model’s effective radiative forcing and/or feedbacks (e.g., Andrews, 2014; Pincus et al., 2016; Sherwood et al., 2015).”
Implementation of the CMIP6 Forcing Data in the IPSL‐CM6A‐LR Model (2020, methodology): “Table 3 presents IRF and ERF values from fixed-SST sensitivity simulations using GHG (greenhouse gases) concentrations from Year 2014, considered as “present-day” in the RFMIP (Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project)-ERF protocol (Pincus et al., 2016), and three paleoclimate periods conside”
Developments in the MPI‐M Earth System Model version 1.2 (MPI‐ESM1.2) and Its Response to Increasing CO2 (2019, unknown): “…of anthropogenic aerosol has been replaced with the newly developed MACv2-SP parameterization (Fiedler et al., 2017; Stevens et al., 2017), which has been designed for the usage in the framework of CMIP6, CFMIP, and other model intercomparisons (Eyring et al., 2016; Pincus et al., 2016).”
The Model Intercomparison Project on the climatic response to Volcanic forcing (VolMIP) : experimental design and forcing input data for CMIP6 (2016, unknown): “In particular, synergies be- tween VolMIP and the WCRP/SPARC Stratospheric Sulfur and its Role in Climate (SSiRC) coordinated multimodel initiative (Timmreck et al., 2016b) as well as between VolMIP and the Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (RFMIP) (Pincus et al., 2016, this issue) wil”
Causes of Higher Climate Sensitivity in CMIP6 Models (2020, unknown): “8 of 12 (Forster et al., 2016; Pincus et al., 2016).”
The GFDL Global Atmosphere and Land Model AM4.0/LM4.0: 2. Model Description, Sensitivity Studies, and Tuning Strategies (2018, background): “One often sees the argument that the twentieth century warming does not strongly constrain either climate sensitivity or the strength of aerosol cooling because similar overall warming can result from relatively low sensitivity to CO2 and weak aerosol cooling, or by high sensitivity and strong aeros”
Improved Aerosol Processes and Effective Radiative Forcing in HadGEM3 and UKESM1 (2018, background): “…aerosol ERF is defined here as the change in net top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation flux in a PI climate due to the perturbation of anthropogenic aerosol emissions only to PD values and follows the fixed sea surface temperature methodology outlined in Forster et al. (2016) and Pincus et al. (2016).”