Differences between CMIP6 and CMIP5 Models in Simulating Climate over China and the East Asian Monsoon

• Published in: Advances in atmospheric sciences Vol. 37; no. 10; pp. 1102 - 1118
• Main Authors: Jiang, Dabang, Hu, Dan, Tian, Zhiping, Lang, Xianmei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg Science Press 01.10.2020; Springer Nature B.V; Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100029, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100049, China%Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100029, China
• Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences; Climate; Climate models; Climate variability; Climatology; CMIP6 Experiments: Model and Dataset Descriptions; Computer simulation; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; East Asian monsoon; Geographical distribution; Geophysics/Geodesy; Global climate; Global climate models; Interannual variability; Intercomparison; Meteorology; Monsoon climates; Monsoon precipitation; Monsoons; Original Paper; Precipitation; Precipitation variability; Precipitation-temperature relationships; Spatial variability; Spatial variations; Summer monsoon; Temperature; Wind; Winter; Winter monsoon; China; 全球气候模式; 气候态; global climate models; China; climatology; East Asia; 中国; interannual variability; 东亚季风; model performance; 年际变率; 模式能力
• ISSN: 0256-1530; 1861-9533
• DOI: 10.1007/s00376-020-2034-y

We compare the ability of coupled global climate models from the phases 5 and 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5 and CMIP6, respectively) in simulating the temperature and precipitation climatology and interannual variability over China for the period 1961\2-2005 and the climatological East Asian monsoon for the period 1979–2005. All 92 models are able to simulate the geographical distribution of the above variables reasonably well. Compared with earlier CMIP5 models, current CMIP6 models have nationally weaker cold biases, a similar nationwide overestimation of precipitation and a weaker underestimation of the southeast\3-northwest precipitation gradient, a comparable overestimation of the spatial variability of the interannual variability, and a similar underestimation of the strength of winter monsoon over northern Asia. Pairwise comparison indicates that models have improved from CMIP5 to CMIP6 for climatological temperature and precipitation and winter monsoon but display little improvement for the interannual temperature and precipitation variability and summer monsoon. The ability of models relates to their horizontal resolutions in certain aspects. Both the multi-model arithmetic mean and median display similar skills and outperform most of the individual models in all considered aspects.