Challenges in Combining Projections from Multiple Climate Models

Abstract Recent coordinated efforts, in which numerous general circulation climate models have been run for a common set of experiments, have produced large datasets of projections of future climate for various scenarios. Those multimodel ensembles sample initial conditions, parameters, and structural uncertainties in the model design, and they have prompted a variety of approaches to quantifying uncertainty in future climate change. International climate change assessments also rely heavily on these models. These assessments often provide equal-weighted averages as best-guess results, assuming that individual model biases will at least partly cancel and that a model average prediction is more likely to be…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: DE-FC02-97ER62402, FC02-97ER62402
• NC
  National Center for Atmospheric Research
• NO
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• OO
  Office of Science

  Awards: Cooperative Agreement DE-FC02-97ER62402, DE-FC02-97ER62402
• CP
  Climate Program Office