Evaluation of the CMIP5 models in the aim of regional modelling of the Antarctic surface mass balance

Abstract

The Antarctic surface mass balance (SMB) cannot be reliably deduced from global climate models (GCMs), both because their spatial resolution is insufficient and because their physics are not adapted for cold and snow-covered regions. By contrast, regional climate models (RCMs) adapted for polar regions can physically and dynamically downscale surface mass balance components over the ice-sheet using large scale forcing at their boundaries. Polar-oriented RCMs require appropriate GCM fields for forcing because the response of the cryosphere to a warming climate is dependent on its initial state and is not linear with respect to temperature increase. In this context, we evaluate current climate in 41 climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) dataset over Antarctica by focusing on forcing fields which may have the greatest impact on SMB components simulated by RCMs. Our inter-comparison includes 5 reanalyses, among which ERA-Interim reanalysis is chosen as a reference over 1979-2014. Model efficiency is assessed taking into account the multi-decadal variability of the fields over the 1850-1980 period. We show that less than 10 CMIP5 models show reasonable biases compared to ERA-Interim, among which ACCESS1-3 seems to be the most pertinent choice for regional climate modeling over Antarctica, followed by CMCC-CM, MIROC-ESM/MIROC-ESM-CHEM and NorESM1-M. Finally, climate change over the Southern Ocean is much more dependent on the initial state of winter sea-ice extent and on the local feedback between air temperature increase and winter sea-ice extent decrease than on the global warming signal.