Co-leads: Paul Durack PCMDI/LLNL and Vaishali Naik, NOAA
This task team will focus on how the CMIP required forcing agents will need to broaden for CMIP7. Climate forcings play a key role in the definition of exogenous drivers of ongoing climate change. As such, they are an integral part of the definition of historical, future scenario and idealised simulations.
Challenge
The CMIP6 forcings include:
- emissions (CO2, aerosol, and ozone precursors from anthropogenic and biomass burning sources)
- concentrations (CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases, aerosols, ozone)
- volcanoes (emissions and concentrations)
- land-use/land cover change, ocean and atmosphere boundary conditions for atmosphere and ocean experiments respectively, in addition to numerous other climate forcing agents.
Due to the expanding complexities of Earth System Models to represent more processes explicitly, it is anticipated that the required forcing agents will need to broaden for CMIP7. As model configurations continue to target higher and higher spatial resolution, additional expansion of temporal and geographical resolutions may be required.
Aim & Objectives
The aim of this TT is to identify and implement the next generation forcings for current and future generations of Earth System models.
Objectives:
- Evaluate the CMIP6 forcing collection and identify issues, coverage gaps or omitted fields (e.g., natural, not anthropogenic, CH4 emissions).
- Identify next generation forcings for current and future generations of Earth System models.
- Work with teams to deliver them.
- Coordinate with modelling groups to perform evaluation and generate simulations using the newly generated/updated forcing datasets
The TT will also be coordinating closely with the various Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) to ensure consistency between the experimental design and the required forcings. The WCRP Lighthouse Activity Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change (EPESC) and Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) will also be important stakeholders.
Members
Climate Forcings Task Team members
| Paul Durack | 2022- | Co-lead | PCMDI/LLNL | USA |
| Vaishali Naik | 2022- | Co-lead | NOAA | USA |
| Louise Chini | 2022- | Member | UMD | USA |
| John Fasullo | 2022- | Member | UCAR | USA |
| Bernd Funke | 2022- | Member | IAA | Spain |
| Heather Graven | 2022- | Member | Imperial College, London | UK |
| Michaela Hegglin | 2022- | Member | Forschungszentrum Jülich | Germany |
| Thibaut Lurton | 2022- | Member | IPSL | France |
| Zebedee Nicholls | 2022- | Member | University of Melbourne | Australia |
| David Plummer | 2022- | Member | Environment Canada | Canada |
| Keywan Riahi | 2022- | Member | IIASA | Austria |
| Steven Smith | 2022- | Member | PNNL | USA |
| Margreet van Marle | 2022- | Member | Deltares | Netherlands |
| Tilo Ziehn | 2022- | Member | CSIRO | Australia |
| Claire Macintosh | 2022- | Member | ESA | UK |
| Thomas Aubry | 2023- | Member | University of Exeter | UK |
| Stephanie Fiedler | 2023- | Member | GEOMAR | Germany |
Stakeholders
| Rachel Hoesly | 2022 – | Stakeholder | PNNL | USA |
| Mahesh Kovilakam | 2022 – | Stakeholder | NASA | USA |
| Malte Meinshausen | 2022 – | Stakeholder | University of Melbourne | Australia |
| Anja Schmidt | 2022 – | Stakeholder | DLR/LMU Munich | Germany |
Activities
Open call for members closed in October 2022 – call text available here.
