Articles | Volume 17, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8665-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8665-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Methods for assessment of models
| Highlight paper
| 
09 Dec 2024
Methods for assessment of models | Highlight paper |
| 09 Dec 2024
| 09 Dec 2024
Evaluating downscaled products with expected hydroclimatic co-variances
Seung H. Baek
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Atmospheric, Earth, & Energy Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA
Paul A. Ullrich
Atmospheric, Earth, & Energy Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA
Bo Dong
Atmospheric, Earth, & Energy Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA
Jiwoo Lee
Atmospheric, Earth, & Energy Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA
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Kyle S. Mattingly, Michelle Maclennan, Joseph Schnaubelt, Christine Shields, Rebecca Baiman, Alexander Y. Massa, Kyle Nardi, Serena R. Scholz, Rudradutt Thaker, Chen Zhang, Seung H. Baek, Tobias Braun, Victoire Buffet, James Butler, Bo Dong, Vincent Favier, Irina Gorodetskaya, Bin Guan, Marlen Kolbe, Melanie Lauer, Gabrielle Linscott, Juan M. Lora, Mengqian Lu, Weiming Ma, Sophia Macarewich, Gudrun Magnusdottir, Travis A. O'Brien, Sofie Tiedeck, Sara M. Vallejo-Bernal, Carolina Viceto, Jonathan D. Wille, Jing Yang, Zhenhai Zhang, and Xun Zou
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Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow bands of water vapor that bring warm, moist air to Earth's polar regions. Our understanding of how ARs affect polar ice sheets and sea ice is sensitive to the AR detection method chosen. In this research, we find that some AR detection methods are better suited for marine areas, while others excel in the interior of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. These results will help constrain uncertainty in projections of polar environmental change linked to ARs.
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Forrest M. Hoffman, Birgit Hassler, Ranjini Swaminathan, Jared Lewis, Bouwe Andela, Nathan Collier, Dóra Hegedűs, Jiwoo Lee, Charlotte Pascoe, Mika Pflüger, Martina Stockhause, Paul Ullrich, Min Xu, Lisa Bock, Felicity Chun, Bettina K. Gier, Douglas I. Kelley, Axel Lauer, Julien Lenhardt, Manuel Schlund, Mohanan G. Sreeush, Katja Weigel, Ed Blockley, Rebecca Beadling, Romain Beucher, Demiso D. Dugassa, Valerio Lembo, Jianhua Lu, Swen Brands, Jerry Tjiputra, Elizaveta Malinina, Brian Medeiros, Enrico Scoccimarro, Jeremy Walton, Phil Kershaw, André Lanfer Marquez, Malcolm J. Roberts, Eleanor O'Rourke, Beth Dingley, Briony Turner, Helene Hewitt, and John P. Dunne
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Hongyu Chen, Paul A. Ullrich, Julian Panetta, David Marsico, Moritz Hanke, Rajeev Jain, Chengzhu Zhang, and Robert L. Jacob
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 6545–6570, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6545-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6545-2026, 2026
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Accurate data transfer between different grids is essential in climate and weather modeling. This study analyzes the geometric operations that underpin such transfers on the spherical Earth, identifies gaps and limitations in current methods, and introduces improved algorithms to ensure accuracy, reliability, and performance for next-generation modeling and data analysis systems.
Jung Choi, Jiwoo Lee, Kristin Chang, Paul A. Ullrich, Peter J. Gleckler, and Sang-Yoon Jun
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 6189–6206, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6189-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6189-2026, 2026
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As climate risks grow, society needs reliable predictions for the coming years and decades. We developed a framework to collectively compare climate prediction systems and examine their performances on global temperature, rainfall, and sea ice. As a complementary to traditional analyses, our new framework offers tracking evolution of model performance in simulation time, helping scientists and stakeholders better understand strengths and limits of decadal climate prediction.
Giuliana Pallotta, Shiheng Duan, Celine Bonfils, Jiwoo Lee, Seth Goodnight, and Paul Ullrich
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.06567, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.06567, 2026
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Deep-learning Earth system models (DL-ESMs) offer a computationally efficient alternative to traditional Earth system models, but their suitability for Earth system applications requires rigorous evaluation. We apply the PCMDI Metrics Package to assess ACE2 and NeuralGCM using climatology, variability, monsoon, and precipitation diagnostics, providing one of the first systematic Earth system model evaluations of DL-ESMs.
Jishi Zhang, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Matthew Vincent Signorotti, Hsiang-He Lee, Peter Bogenschutz, Minda Monteagudo, Paul Aaron Ullrich, Robert S. Arthur, Stephen Po-Chedley, Philip Cameron-Smith, and Jean-Paul Watson
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 4513–4545, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-4513-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-4513-2026, 2026
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Katherine M. Smith, Alice M. Barthel, LeAnn M. Conlon, Luke P. Van Roekel, Anthony Bartoletti, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Chengzhu Zhang, Carolyn Branecky Begeman, James J. Benedict, Gautam Bisht, Yan Feng, Walter Hannah, Bryce E. Harrop, Nicole Jeffery, Wuyin Lin, Po-Lun Ma, Mathew E. Maltrud, Mark R. Petersen, Balwinder Singh, Qi Tang, Teklu Tesfa, Jonathan D. Wolfe, Shaocheng Xie, Xue Zheng, Karthik Balaguru, Oluwayemi Garuba, Peter Gleckler, Aixue Hu, Jiwoo Lee, Ben Moore-Maley, and Ana C. Ordoñez
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Paul J. Durack, Karl E. Taylor, Peter J. Gleckler, Gerald A. Meehl, Bryan N. Lawrence, Curt Covey, Ronald J. Stouffer, Guillaume Levavasseur, Atef Ben-Nasser, Sebastien Denvil, Martina Stockhause, Jonathan M. Gregory, Martin Juckes, Sasha K. Ames, Fabrizio Antonio, David C. Bader, John P. Dunne, Daniel Ellis, Veronika Eyring, Sandro L. Fiore, Sylvie Joussaume, Philip Kershaw, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Michael Lautenschlager, Jiwoo Lee, Chris F. Mauzey, Matthew Mizielinski, Paola Nassisi, Alessandra Nuzzo, Eleanor O’Rourke, Jeffrey Painter, Gerald L. Potter, Sven Rodriguez, and Dean N. Williams
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Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3919–3948, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3919-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3919-2024, 2024
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Justin L. Willson, Kevin A. Reed, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Mark A. Taylor, Paul A. Ullrich, Colin M. Zarzycki, David M. Hall, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Thomas Dubos, Yann Meurdesoif, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Christian Kühnlein, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Claude Girard, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, and Ryuji Yoshida
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 2493–2507, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-2493-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-2493-2024, 2024
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Accurate simulation of tropical cyclones (TCs) is essential to understanding their behavior in a changing climate. One way this is accomplished is through model intercomparison projects, where results from multiple climate models are analyzed to provide benchmark solutions for the wider climate modeling community. This study describes and analyzes the previously developed TC test case for nine climate models in an intercomparison project, providing solutions that aid in model development.
Lele Shu, Paul Ullrich, Xianhong Meng, Christopher Duffy, Hao Chen, and Zhaoguo Li
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 497–527, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-497-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-497-2024, 2024
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Our team developed rSHUD v2.0, a toolkit that simplifies the use of the SHUD, a model simulating water movement in the environment. We demonstrated its effectiveness in two watersheds, one in the USA and one in China. The toolkit also facilitated the creation of the Global Hydrological Data Cloud, a platform for automatic data processing and model deployment, marking a significant advancement in hydrological research.
Qi Tang, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Luke P. Van Roekel, Mark A. Taylor, Wuyin Lin, Benjamin R. Hillman, Paul A. Ullrich, Andrew M. Bradley, Oksana Guba, Jonathan D. Wolfe, Tian Zhou, Kai Zhang, Xue Zheng, Yunyan Zhang, Meng Zhang, Mingxuan Wu, Hailong Wang, Cheng Tao, Balwinder Singh, Alan M. Rhoades, Yi Qin, Hong-Yi Li, Yan Feng, Yuying Zhang, Chengzhu Zhang, Charles S. Zender, Shaocheng Xie, Erika L. Roesler, Andrew F. Roberts, Azamat Mametjanov, Mathew E. Maltrud, Noel D. Keen, Robert L. Jacob, Christiane Jablonowski, Owen K. Hughes, Ryan M. Forsyth, Alan V. Di Vittorio, Peter M. Caldwell, Gautam Bisht, Renata B. McCoy, L. Ruby Leung, and David C. Bader
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3953–3995, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3953-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3953-2023, 2023
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High-resolution simulations are superior to low-resolution ones in capturing regional climate changes and climate extremes. However, uniformly reducing the grid size of a global Earth system model is too computationally expensive. We provide an overview of the fully coupled regionally refined model (RRM) of E3SMv2 and document a first-of-its-kind set of climate production simulations using RRM at an economic cost. The key to this success is our innovative hybrid time step method.
Min-Seop Ahn, Paul A. Ullrich, Peter J. Gleckler, Jiwoo Lee, Ana C. Ordonez, and Angeline G. Pendergrass
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3927–3951, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3927-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3927-2023, 2023
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We introduce a framework for regional-scale evaluation of simulated precipitation distributions with 62 climate reference regions and 10 metrics and apply it to evaluate CMIP5 and CMIP6 models against multiple satellite-based precipitation products. The common model biases identified in this study are mainly associated with the overestimated light precipitation and underestimated heavy precipitation. These biases persist from earlier-generation models and have been slightly improved in CMIP6.
Abhishekh Kumar Srivastava, Paul Aaron Ullrich, Deeksha Rastogi, Pouya Vahmani, Andrew Jones, and Richard Grotjahn
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3699–3722, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3699-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3699-2023, 2023
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Stakeholders need high-resolution regional climate data for applications such as assessing water availability and mountain snowpack. This study examines 3 h and 24 h historical precipitation over the contiguous United States in the 12 km WRF version 4.2.1-based dynamical downscaling of the ERA5 reanalysis. WRF improves precipitation characteristics such as the annual cycle and distribution of the precipitation maxima, but it also displays regionally and seasonally varying precipitation biases.
Zeyu Xue, Paul Ullrich, and Lai-Yung Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 1909–1927, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1909-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1909-2023, 2023
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We examine the sensitivity and robustness of conclusions drawn from the PGW method over the NEUS by conducting multiple PGW experiments and varying the perturbation spatial scales and choice of perturbed meteorological variables to provide a guideline for this increasingly popular regional modeling method. Overall, we recommend PGW experiments be performed with perturbations to temperature or the combination of temperature and wind at the gridpoint scale, depending on the research question.
David H. Marsico and Paul A. Ullrich
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 1537–1551, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1537-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1537-2023, 2023
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Climate models involve several different components, such as the atmosphere, ocean, and land models. Information needs to be exchanged, or remapped, between these models, and devising algorithms for performing this exchange is important for ensuring the accuracy of climate simulations. In this paper, we examine the efficacy of several traditional and novel approaches to remapping on the sphere and demonstrate where our approaches offer improvement.
Chengzhu Zhang, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Ryan Forsyth, Tom Vo, Shaocheng Xie, Zeshawn Shaheen, Gerald L. Potter, Xylar S. Asay-Davis, Charles S. Zender, Wuyin Lin, Chih-Chieh Chen, Chris R. Terai, Salil Mahajan, Tian Zhou, Karthik Balaguru, Qi Tang, Cheng Tao, Yuying Zhang, Todd Emmenegger, Susannah Burrows, and Paul A. Ullrich
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 9031–9056, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-9031-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-9031-2022, 2022
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Earth system model (ESM) developers run automated analysis tools on data from candidate models to inform model development. This paper introduces a new Python package, E3SM Diags, that has been developed to support ESM development and use routinely in the development of DOE's Energy Exascale Earth System Model. This tool covers a set of essential diagnostics to evaluate the mean physical climate from simulations, as well as several process-oriented and phenomenon-based evaluation diagnostics.
Vijay S. Mahadevan, Jorge E. Guerra, Xiangmin Jiao, Paul Kuberry, Yipeng Li, Paul Ullrich, David Marsico, Robert Jacob, Pavel Bochev, and Philip Jones
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6601–6635, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6601-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6601-2022, 2022
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Coupled Earth system models require transfer of field data between multiple components with varying spatial resolutions to determine the correct climate behavior. We present the Metrics for Intercomparison of Remapping Algorithms (MIRA) protocol to evaluate the accuracy, conservation properties, monotonicity, and local feature preservation of four different remapper algorithms for various unstructured mesh problems of interest. Future extensions to more practical use cases are also discussed.
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Editorial statement
This paper addresses the conditions in which GCM and downscaled solutions diverge for targeted processes under historical and future climate conditions. Downscaling is a crucial part of making climate model outputs useable by the wider science and policy community. Understanding the properties and limitations of downscaling should hence be of interest far beyond the model development community.
This paper addresses the conditions in which GCM and downscaled solutions diverge for targeted...
Short summary
We evaluate downscaled products by examining locally relevant co-variances during precipitation events. Common statistical downscaling techniques preserve expected co-variances during convective precipitation (a stationary phenomenon). However, they dampen future intensification of frontal precipitation (a non-stationary phenomenon) captured in global climate models and dynamical downscaling. Our study quantifies a ramification of the stationarity assumption underlying statistical downscaling.
We evaluate downscaled products by examining locally relevant co-variances during precipitation...
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