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A global climate model performance atlas for the Southern Hemisphere extratropics based on regional atmospheric circulation patterns
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  • Swen Brands,
  • Juan Antonio Fernández-Granja,
  • joaquin Bedia,
  • Ana Casanueva,
  • Jesús Fernández
Swen Brands
MeteoGalicia - Consellería de Medio Ambiente, Territorio y Vivienda - Xunta de Galicia

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Juan Antonio Fernández-Granja
Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria-CSIC
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joaquin Bedia
University of Cantabria
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Ana Casanueva
University of Cantabria
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Jesús Fernández
Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria-CSIC
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Abstract

The performance of 61 global climate models participating in CMIP5 and 6 is evaluated for the Southern Hemisphere extratropics in terms of typical regional-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. These patterns are known to be linked with a number of key variables in atmospheric physics and chemistry and provide an overarching concept for model evaluation. First, hemispheric-wide error and ranking maps are provided for each model and regional details are described. Then, the results are compared with those obtained in a companion study for the Northern Hemisphere. For most models, the average error magnitude and ranking position is similar on both hemispheres, ruling out systematic tuning towards either of the two. CMIP6 models perform better on average than CMIP5 models and the interactive simulation of more climate system components does not deteriorate the results for most model families. Better performance is associated with higher resolution in the atmosphere, following a non-linear relationship.
07 Mar 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
09 Mar 2023Published in ESS Open Archive