Accessibility navigation


Simple uncertainty frameworks for selecting weighting schemes and interpreting multimodel ensemble climate change experiments

Sansom, P. G., Stephenson, D. B., Ferro, C. A. T., Zappa, G. and Shaffrey, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2696-752X (2013) Simple uncertainty frameworks for selecting weighting schemes and interpreting multimodel ensemble climate change experiments. Journal of Climate, 26 (12). pp. 4017-4037. ISSN 1520-0442

[img]
Preview
Text - Published Version
· Please see our End User Agreement before downloading.

2MB

It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing.

To link to this item DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00462.1

Abstract/Summary

Future climate change projections are often derived from ensembles of simulations from multiple global circulation models using heuristic weighting schemes. This study provides a more rigorous justification for this by introducing a nested family of three simple analysis of variance frameworks. Statistical frameworks are essential in order to quantify the uncertainty associated with the estimate of the mean climate change response. The most general framework yields the “one model, one vote” weighting scheme often used in climate projection. However, a simpler additive framework is found to be preferable when the climate change response is not strongly model dependent. In such situations, the weighted multimodel mean may be interpreted as an estimate of the actual climate response, even in the presence of shared model biases. Statistical significance tests are derived to choose the most appropriate framework for specific multimodel ensemble data. The framework assumptions are explicit and can be checked using simple tests and graphical techniques. The frameworks can be used to test for evidence of nonzero climate response and to construct confidence intervals for the size of the response. The methodology is illustrated by application to North Atlantic storm track data from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) multimodel ensemble. Despite large variations in the historical storm tracks, the cyclone frequency climate change response is not found to be model dependent over most of the region. This gives high confidence in the response estimates. Statistically significant decreases in cyclone frequency are found on the flanks of the North Atlantic storm track and in the Mediterranean basin.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS
Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
ID Code:34551
Publisher:American Meteorological Society

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

University Staff: Request a correction | Centaur Editors: Update this record

Page navigation