Establishing the Scientific Value of Multiple GCM-RCM Simulation Programs: The Example of NARCCAP

Abstract:

There have been a number of multiple GCM-RCM programs, covering Europe, North America, and now, through CORDEX, most regions of the world. Standard metrics of success for these programs include number of publications, number of users of the data, and number of citations to the program. However, these metrics do not necessarily reflect the scientific value of the program, for example, what new scientific knowledge has been developed. We began to carefully consider how one does establish the scientific value of such programs. We thought that establishing the scientific value of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) would be a good way to examine this issue. We present in this paper our assessment of the value of the climate science research produced through the program. These studies include articles that evaluate the current climates of the NARCCAP simulations, analyze the future climate projections, explore temperature and precipitation extremes and apply new statistical techniques to the analyses. A number of articles apply weighting techniques to the ensemble and quantify the uncertainty represented by the ensemble. Of particular interest is determining what we have learned about future climate projections based on the use of higher resolution dynamically generated future climate information. We will evaluate all research articles and major reports (aside from those regarding impacts) that used the NARCCAP database, and we will assess the major research advances indicated in this literature.