Chinese Contribution to CMIP5:An Overview of Five Chinese Models' Performances

An overview of Chinese contribution to Coupled Model Intercomparison Project–Phase 5(CMIP5) is presented. The performances of five Chinese Climate/Earth System Models that participated in the CMIP5 project are assessed in the context of climate mean states, seasonal cycle, intraseasonal oscillation, interannual variability, interdecadal variability, global monsoon, Asian-Australian monsoon, 20th-century historical climate simulation, climate change projection, and climate sensitivity. Both the strengths and weaknesses of the models are evaluated. The models generally show reasonable performances in simulating sea surface temperature(SST) mean state, seasonal cycle, spatial patterns of Madden–Julian oscillation(MJO) amplitude and tropical cyclone Genesis Potential Index(GPI), global monsoon precipitation pattern, El Nio–Southern Oscillation(ENSO), and Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO) related SST anomalies. However, the performances of the models in simulating the time periods, amplitude, and phase locking of ENSO, PDO time periods, GPI magnitude, MJO propagation, magnitude of SST seasonal cycle, northwestern Pacific monsoon and North American monsoon domains, as well as the skill of large-scale Asian monsoon precipitation need to be improved. The model performances in simulating the time evolution and spatial pattern of the20th-century global warming and the future change under representative concentration pathways projection are compared to the multimodel ensemble of CMIP5 models. The model discrepancies in terms of climate sensitivity are also discussed.