Session 1 Plenary intro: What is the value of an Australian CMIP7 submission?

This topic contains discussions, questions and thoughts about the first session of the CMIP7 Workshop Session 1 (Tuesday 28th February, 2023 from 10:00 - 11:15)

Session 1 speakers:

Welcome (Melita Keywood, CSIRO, 5 min)

General World Climate Research Program (WCRP) description (Helen Cleugh, WCRP, 10+5 min)

CMIP7 from CMIP panel perspective (Julie Arblaster, Monash University,10+5 min)

Government Perspective on CMIP7 (Kathryn Smith, DCCEEW, 10+5 min)

Meeting Outline & Scope (Andy Hogg, ACCESS-NRI; Simon Marsland, NESP & Ben Evans, NCI, 5 min each)

Discussion, questions (10 min)

The WCRP Open Science Conference 2023 mentioned by Helen Cleugh

New CMIP website mentioned by Julie Arblaster

@bgf asked:

How will role of gpu acceleration impact cmip7 discussions.

has role of AI/ML been discussed. ISMIP6 and outputs used in last AR made extensive use of AI/ML for example

Julie: Thanks for those details on CMIP7. Can CMIP and IPCC deadlines be better offset in the future? In the past, IPCC report deadlines have almost coincided with CMIP releases, making it v. difficult to write IPCC Chapters on time (e.g. model evaluation).

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From Kathryn Smith on Government perspective:
Some questions for consideration:​

What is the value to Australia of ACCESS being in CMIP7? What are the risks of not submitting?​

What are the benefits to Australian decision makers using climate projections to access their climate risks and inform adaptation planning?​

What might be different about it about CMIP7 compared to previous contributions?​

What are the options and the range of involvement that might be considered? What are the trade-offs?​

Hello - what obligation or commitment does the Australian Government have to also be fact-checking international climate modelling, mitigation, adaption and intervention efforts? If we don’t do it ourselves then we are relying on non sovereign capability to make decisions of importance to Australia. Suggest we need Australian Sovereign capability. The question I feel is not if it should be done but how do we engage efficiently for best strategic interest for Australia?

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@SimonMarsland liken this meeting to being an Australian Olympic Climate Team in preparation for CMIP7. In that spirit, GO AUSSIE!

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Hi Matt, ideally the runs would be done well in advance of the IPCC reports and this was the goal in CMIP6 but for various reasons didn’t happen. Part of this was that some of the forcings didn’t become available until later than planned and partly this is due to the inherent difficulty in coupled model development and getting a stable model configuration which meant many models submitted later than planned. You’re right that much of the work assessed in AR6 is based on cmip5 and the discussion is whether this is possible to change or should be built into the design eg the separation of most of the MIPS from the IPCC timeline. If you have any ideas or suggestions we’re all ears!

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Thanks Julie! My only ever thought on this is just to mandate that the CMIP deadlines & IPCC cycles be offset. I guess that’s down to a high level decision that has to come from IPCC leadership. Doing so would recognise that it takes time to do the science once the CMIP model simulations are released. At the moment, that time lag is not recognised.