Reduced Complexity Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2: Synthesising Earth system knowledge for probabilistic climate projections

Abstract

Over the last decades, climate science has branched out into many smaller expert communities across the carbon cycle, radiative forcings, climate feedbacks or ocean heat uptake domains. Our best tools to capture state-of-the-art knowledge are the increasingly complex fully coupled Earth System Models (ESMs). However, computational limitations and the structural rigidity of ESMs mean that the full range of uncertainties are difficult to capture with multi-model ESM ensembles or single ESM perturbed parameter ensembles. The tools of choice are hence more computationally efficient reduced complexity models (RCMs), which are structurally flexible and can span the response dynamics across a range..