A synergistic approach for evaluating climate model output for ecological applications

Cavanagh, Rachel D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2474-9716; Murphy, Eugene J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7369-9196; Bracegirdle, Thomas J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8868-4739; Turner, John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6111-5122; Knowland, Cheryl A.; Corney, Stuart P.; Smith, Walker O.; Waluda, Claire M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3517-5233; Johnston, Nadine M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2211-1492; Bellerby, Richard G.J.; Constable, Andrew J.; Costa, Daniel p.; Hofmann, Eileen E.; Jackson, Jennifer A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4158-1924; Staniland, Iain J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2736-9134; Wolf-Gladrow, Dieter; Xavier, Jose C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9621-6660. 2017 A synergistic approach for evaluating climate model output for ecological applications. Frontiers in Marine Science, 4, 508. 10.3389/fmars.2017.00308

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Official URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars...

Abstract/Summary

Increasing concern about the impacts of climate change on ecosystems is prompting ecologists and ecosystem managers to seek reliable projections of physical drivers of change. The use of global climate models in ecology is growing, although drawing ecologically meaningful conclusions can be problematic. The expertise required to access and interpret output from climate and earth system models is hampering progress in utilizing them most effectively to determine the wider implications of climate change. To address this issue, we present a joint approach between climate scientists and ecologists that explores key challenges and opportunities for progress. As an exemplar, our focus is the Southern Ocean, notable for significant change with global implications, and on sea ice, given its crucial role in this dynamic ecosystem. We combined perspectives to evaluate the representation of sea ice in global climate models. With an emphasis on ecologically-relevant criteria (sea ice extent and seasonality) we selected a subset of eight models that reliably reproduce extant sea ice distributions. While the model subset shows a similar mean change to the full ensemble in sea ice extent (approximately 50% decline in winter and 30% decline in summer), there is a marked reduction in the range. This improved the precision of projected future sea ice distributions by approximately one third, and means they are more amenable to ecological interpretation. We conclude that careful multidisciplinary evaluation of climate models, in conjunction with ongoing modeling advances, should form an integral part of utilizing model output.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.3389/fmars.2017.00308
Programmes:	BAS Programmes > BAS Programmes 2015 > Atmosphere, Ice and Climate BAS Programmes > BAS Programmes 2015 > Ecosystems
ISSN:	22967745
Date made live:	27 Sep 2017 13:54 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/516716

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.3389/fmars.2017.00308

Programmes:

BAS Programmes > BAS Programmes 2015 > Atmosphere, Ice and Climate
BAS Programmes > BAS Programmes 2015 > Ecosystems

ISSN:

22967745

Date made live:

27 Sep 2017 13:54 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/516716