This catalogue entry provides daily and monthly global climate projections data from a large number of experiments, models and time periods computed in the framework of sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6).
CMIP6 data are going to be used extensively in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report. The use of these data is mostly aimed at:
- addressing outstanding scientific questions that arose as part of the IPCC reporting process;
- improving the understanding of the climate system;
- providing estimates of future climate change and related uncertainties;
- providing input data for the adaptation to the climate change;
- examining climate predictability and exploring the ability of models to predict climate on decadal time scales;
- evaluating how realistic the different models are in simulating the recent past.
The term "experiments" refers to the three main categories of CMIP5 simulations:
- Historical experiments which cover the period where modern climate observations exist. These experiments show how the GCMs performs for the past climate and can be used as a reference period for comparison with scenario runs for the future. The period covered is typically 1850-2005.
- Climate projection experiments following the combined pathways of Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP). The SSP scenarios provide different pathways of the future climate forcing. The period covered is typically 2006-2100, some extended RCP experimental data is available from 2100-2300.
In this catalogue entry the users will be able to select vertical levels for the 3-dimensional variables and spatial and temporal subsetting of all the available data. This is a new feature of the global climate projection dataset, which relies on compute processes run simultaneously in the ESGF nodes, where the data are originally located.
The data are produced by the participating institutes of the CMIP6 project.
DATA DESCRIPTION | |
---|---|
Data type | Gridded |
Horizontal coverage | Global |
Horizontal resolution | From 0.125° x 0.125° to 5° x 5° depending on the model |
Vertical resolution | Variables are provided in one single level which may differ among variables. |
Temporal coverage | 1850-2300 (shorter for some experiments) |
Temporal resolution | Daily and Monthly |
File format | NetCDF |
MAIN VARIABLES | ||
---|---|---|
Name | Units | Description |
Sea ice fraction | Dimensionless | Area of the sea surface occupied by sea ice. |
Snow depth over sea ice | K | Mean thickness of snow in the ocean portion of the grid cell (averaging over the entire ocean portion, including the snow-free ocean fraction). Reported as 0.0 in regions free of snow-covered sea ice. |
TOA outgoing clear-sky longwave radiation | W m-2 | Longwave radiation from the top of the atmosphere to space per unit area assuming clear-sky conditions |
TOA outgoing clear-sky shortwave radiation | W m-2 | Shortwave radiation from the top of the atmosphere to space per unit area assuming clear-sky conditions |