Development of the Southern Ocean Climate Model Atlas

Abstract:

The development of consistent, observationally-based metrics, by which to assess the fidelity of a model simulation is being undertaken by many modelers and modeling groups. A “Southern Ocean Climate Model Atlas” is under construction that will house the results of these various analyses and will provide access for fellow scientists, stakeholders, resource managers and the public to the latest projections of climate and climate change from all of the available climate models. This Atlas will allow a visual comparison of simulated fields, differences and errors and will include quantification of the errors where the observations permit. It will also include the scripts required for anyone to create a comparable map with their own data/output. We will discuss the creation of observationally-based metrics and some of the challenges associated with the consistent quantification of simulations errors and inter-model differences. We will also present some of the commonly assessed variables (e.g. temperature, winds, ice, pH) useful to climate scientists, ecosystem scientists and the general public.