The WCRP Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) provides valuable multi-model climate simulations and projections that benefit many stakeholders, both individually and collectively, providing the foundation for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) policy deliberations, and climate services and products disseminated worldwide.
The growing dependency on CMIP products by a broad sector of the research community and by national and international climate assessments, services and policy-making means that CMIP activities require substantial efforts in order to provide timely and quality controlled model output and analysis.
Although CMIP has been extraordinarily successful and leverages a large investment from individual countries, there are aspects that are fragile or unsustainable due to a lack of sustained funding. The impressive CMIP leveraging is largely due to volunteer efforts of the research community and individual scientists who contribute to the underlying essential infrastructure.
CMIP has now reached a stage where certain components and activities require sustained institutional support for it to meet the growing expectation to support climate services, policy, and decision-making. Of particular urgency is the systematic development of forcing scenarios that require institutionalized support so that quality controlled datasets and regular updates can be provided in a timely fashion. In addition, a more operational infrastructure needs to be put in place, so that core simulations that support national and international assessments can be regularly delivered. This includes the oversight and maintenance of the data standards, documentation, and software capabilities that make possible this collaborative international enterprise.
Those key issues were identified and discussed in detail during the 22nd Session of the WCRP Working Group on Coupled Modeling, held in Barcelona, Spain, from 25-29 March 2019. Subsequently, those outcomes were presented and debated as part of a dedicated agenda item during the 40th Session of the WCRP Joint Scientific Committee (JSC), held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 6-10 May 2019. The JSC recommended and endorsed the submission of a specific Resolution seeking the support of WMO Members to CMIP, which was presented and approved at the 18th World Meteorological Congress, held from 3-14 June 2019.
Useful links:
- CMIP6 overview: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip/wgcm-cmip6
- CMIP6 Model Analysis Workshop: https://cmip6workshop19.sciencesconf.org
- International climate scientists discuss first results from a new set of climate model simulations at the CMIP6 Model Analysis Workshop in Barcelona, Spain
- Documents from the 40th Session of the JSC (Agenda Item 10.1)
- WMO 8th World Meteorological Congress Document
Members of WMO governance, the WMO and WCRP secretariates, and of the scientific community during the Research Day of the 18th WMO Congress on 11 June 2019.