H12A-06:
Land-atmosphere interactions in a changing climate: An overview of the GLACE-CMIP5 experiment

Monday, 15 December 2014: 12:00 PM
Sonia I Seneviratne1, Micah Wilhelm1, Tanja Stanelle1, Bart van den Hurk2, Stefan Hagemann3, Alexis M Berg4,5, Frederique Cheruy6, Matthew Higgins7, Ruth Lorenz8, Arndt Meier9, Victor Brovkin3, Martin Claussen3, Agnes Ducharne10, Jean-Louis Dufresne6, Kirsten Lynn Findell11, Josefine Ghattas10, David M Lawrence7, Sergey Malyshev11, Andrew John Pitman8, Markku Rummukainen9 and Benjamin Smith12, (1)ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, (2)Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, Netherlands, (3)MPI for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, (4)Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Brunswick, NJ, United States, (5)Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (6)Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique Palaiseau, Palaiseau Cedex, France, (7)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (8)University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, (9)Centre for Environmental and Climate Research, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, (10)Laboratoire Sisyphe/IPSL, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France, (11)GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (12)Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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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