In late September 2023 the CMIP Core Panel met in New York, kindly hosted by Panel member, Robert Pincus, at the Columbia University Climate School.
Planning for the next phase of CMIP and discussion on its longer-term vision and structure have been progressing through regular online meetings of the CMIP Panel, supported by the seven CMIP Task Teams. However, recognising the carbon impact of travel, this meeting was deemed vital to accelerate the experimental design and visioning process as well as an important opportunity for the Panel members (Co-chairs Helene Hewitt and John Dunne together with Julie Arblaster, Olivier Boucher, Paul Durack, Tomoki Miyakawa, Matt Mizielinski, Robert Pincus) and CMIP IPO Director, Eleanor O’Rourke, to meet in person, and in the same time zone!
“While our virtual options are terrific for the globally inclusive sharing of information, in-person meetings like this remain essential for incorporating different perspectives in depth and achieving true consensus” John Dunne, CMIP Panel Co-chair
Discussion focused around the following priority areas:
- Determination of responsibilities across the CMIP community.
- Vision and mission for the future CMIP, delivering against both service and science goals.
- Development of the next phase experiment design including decisions on additions to the DECK.
- Review of experiment selection recommendations from the Strategic Ensemble Design the CMIP AR7 Fast Track targeted at delivering to the next IPCC cycle.
- Development of best-practice guidelines for MIPs and supporting collaboration and coordination.
- Interaction with the high-resolution community.
- How to ensure efficient and effective delivery e.g., seeking operational path for forcing dataset provision and minimising carbon footprint.
The co-leads of the CMIP task teams and ScenarioMIP Chairs joined the meeting remotely to provide an update on progress, raise any issues of concerns and help identify key milestones particularly towards delivery of the CMIP AR7 Fast Track. The final day of the meeting focused on initiating the “Evolving coupled model intercomparison and phasing in support of future climate assessments” overview paper, which is planned for submission to Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) during 2024.
Many of the meeting aims were achieved but there is still a lot of work to be done by the Core and wider CMIP Panel, WGCM Infrastructure Panel (WIP) and CMIP task teams, supported by the CMIP IPO, to ensure the future CMIP is fit for purpose against rapidly evolving demands and expectations from an ever-wider range of user together with continuing to support the climate research community. Active discussions and planning continue through regular online meetings, task team activities and, importantly, community and user engagement and feedback opportunities.
“The New York meeting of the CMIP Core Panel has built the foundations for a strong plan for CMIP7 and a vision for CMIP for the years to come.” Helene Hewitt, CMIP Panel Co-Chair
The Columbia Climate School encompasses the Earth Institute, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and more than 20 other centres and programmes, supporting a continuum of research, from basic discovery to societal solutions and provided an excellent venue and hosting for the meeting. We would like to thank the meeting organisers, facility and IT staff who all offered the warmest welcome. In addition the Panel members benefitted from Robert’s gastronomic expertise offering a real taste of New York.
“I’m grateful my colleagues were willing to travel so far to meet in person and dedicate significant time to these discussions. Terrific support from the Columbia Climate School and the CMIP IPO meant we could concentrate on the tasks in front of us.” Robert Pincus, CMIP Core Panel member and meeting host.
For the latest update on next phase planning please see https://wcrp-cmip.org/cmip7/.
