Land-atmosphere interactions in a changing climate: An overview of the GLACE-CMIP5 experiment

Sonia I Seneviratne1, Micah Wilhelm2, Tanja Stanelle3, Bart van den Hurk4, Stefan Hagemann5, Alexis M Berg6,7, Frederique Cheruy8, Matthew Higgins9, Ruth Lorenz10, Arndt Meier11, Victor Brovkin12, Martin Claussen5, Agnes Ducharne13, Jean-Louis Dufresne14, Kirsten Lynn Findell15, Josefine Ghattas16, David M Lawrence17, Sergey Malyshev18, Andrew John Pitman19, Markku Rummukainen11 and Benjamin Smith20, (1)Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, (2)Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zurich, Switzerland, (3)ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, (4)Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, Netherlands, (5)MPI for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, (6)Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Brunswick, United States, (7)Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (8)Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, IPSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France, (9)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (10)University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, (11)Centre for Environmental and Climate Research, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, (12)MPI for Meteorology, Department of the Land in the Earth System, Hamburg, Germany, (13)Sorbonne University, Institute Pierre Simon Laplace, Environment, transfers and interactions in soils and water bodies, Paris, France, (14)Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique Palaiseau, Palaiseau Cedex, France, (15)GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (16)Laboratoire Sisyphe/IPSL, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France, (17)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States, (18)NOAA/GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (19)University of New South Wales, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Sydney, NSW, Australia, (20)Vycarb Inc., Brooklyn, NY, United States
Abstract:
The Global Land-Atmosphere Climate Experiment–Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (GLACE-CMIP5) is a multimodel experiment investigating the impact of soil moisture-climate feedbacks in CMIP5 simulations (Seneviratne et al. 2013). This experiment builds upon previous studies investigating the role of soil moisture-atmosphere interactions for seasonal forecasting (Koster et al. 2004) and for regional climate projections (Seneviratne et al. 2006). A total of 6 modeling groups took part in the experiment (CESM, EC-EARTH, GFDL, IPSL, MPI-ESM, and more recently ACCESS). The results reveal that projected soil moisture changes by the end of the 21st century substantially impact climate in several regions on both hemispheres, both under present and future climate conditions. Strong and consistent effects are found on temperature, especially for extremes (about 1– 1.5K for mean temperature and 2– 2.5K for extreme daytime temperature). In the Northern Hemisphere, effects on mean and heavy precipitation are also found in most models, but the results are less consistent than for temperature. A direct scaling between soil moisture induced changes in evaporative cooling and resulting changes in temperature mean and extremes is found in the simulations. Further results from more recent analyses, especially regarding impacts on extremes will be discussed. The presentation will also address the implications of these results for climate extremes attribution and climate change adaptation, as well as follow-up activities under CMIP6.

References:

Koster, R.D., et al., 2004: Science, 305, 1138–1140.

Koster, R.D., et al., 2010: Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L02402, doi:10.1029/2009GL041677.

Seneviratne, S.I., D. Lüthi, M. Litschi, and C. Schär, 2006: Nature, 443, 205-209.

Seneviratne, S.I., M. Wilhelm, T. Stanelle, B.J.J.M. van den Hurk, S. Hagemann, A. Berg, F. Cheruy, M.E. Higgins, A. Meier, V. Brovkin, M. Claussen, A. Ducharne, J.-L. Dufresne, K.L. Findell, J. Ghattas, D.M. Lawrence, S. Malyshev, M. Rummukainen, and B. Smith, 2013: Impact of soil moisture-climate feedbacks on CMIP5 projections: First results from the GLACE-CMIP5 experiment. Geophys. Res. Lett., 40 (19), 5212-5217.

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