Using Clustered Climate Regimes to Analyze and Compare Predictions from Fully Coupled General Circulation Models

Ensemble Cluster Evolution, 5 Year Running Average, Random Colors - 32 Clusters
Five year running average of cluster frequency for regimes exhibiting significant global land area changes in the ensemble mean where the clusters are defined as follows:
32 Antarctic/Greenland Fall/Spring #1
9 Desert Summer (Hottest and Driest)
7 Antarctic/Greenland Fall/Spring #2
1 Desert Winter
26 Siberian/Canadian Winter
6 Antarctic Winter #1 (Coldest and Driest)
11 Antarctic/Greenland Summer
Cluster maps
Random (top) and similarity colored (bottom) animations of the B05.12 ensemble member in terms of the common climate regimes shown at right. Click on the desired image above to view the animation.
Common climate regimes
Common climate regimes or states statistically defined in terms of three variables--temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture--for all five BAU transient simulations taken together.

References:

Hoffman, Forrest M., William W. Hargrove, David J. Erickson, and Robert J. Oglesby. August 3, 2005. "Using Clustered Climate Regimes to Analyze and Compare Predictions from Fully Coupled General Circulation Models." Earth Interactions, 9(10): 1-27, doi:10.1175/EI110.1. [ PDF ]

Graphics and animations are available at http://www.climatemodeling.org/pcm/.


Research partially sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Programs. This research used resources of the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Support was also provided by a research and development grant from the Science Directorate of NASA/MSFC.