Global climate models are one of our key tools for understanding the climate system and for projecting likely changes to our future climate. Climate models are constantly being developed to simulate the world with more realism and to include more components of the Earth system, such as cloud cover, sea ice and convection.
Every six to seven years new climate model simulations from across the world are submitted to the international Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). This project ensures the climate model simulations are standardised, comparable and publicly available for use by the global research community to investigate the past, present and future climate, and for use in global assessments, such as reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Results from the current round of cutting-edge global climate models under the sixth phase of CMIP (CMIP6) are hot off the press. These models will be assessed in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report next year and will be an important new resource for Australian climate research and services for the coming years. So, what do they say for Australia?
The Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub has a key role in assessing the new model simulations from CMIP6 and planning how Australia can make best use of them for climate projections of our region. Researchers under the Hub have already begun to analyse the modelling results, including the new opportunities CMIP6 offers to explore the future through a new set of socio-economic, as well as physical, scenarios.
In this webinar, Sugata Narsey (Bureau of Meteorology) and Michael Grose (CSIRO) will summarise and highlight the Hub’s analysis and studies of the CMIP6 climate model simulations just released. Sugata and Michael will provide a general overview of CMIP6 model performance and climate change projections for Australia, with a special focus on a set of new models with high climate sensitivity and hotter temperature projections. They will also take a detailed look at one of the biggest remaining questions about the effect of climate change on Australia – what will happen to rainfall in the north?