Collaborative Research: EaSM2--Advanced Climate and Regional Model Validation for Societal Applications

地球系统模型(EaSM)全面概括了形成地球气候的物理、化学和生物过程之间的复杂相互作用。然而，他们的标准数据产品对日益面临气候变化的大多数规划和决策过程并不直接有用。它们(1)没有在(2)所需的时间和空间尺度上给出必要的变量和数量，(3)也没有对应用关键特性进行充分的质量测试。目前向终端用户提供EaSM数据的“传授”方法导致了对场景、数据和所涉及工具的大量知识的丧失。然而，这种知识，加上关于不确定性和最佳做法的透明和可获取的信息，对于确保有效的决策至关重要。因此，要实现EaSM广泛投资的承诺，挑战是适当和有效地将其广泛的能力与业务应用程序相结合，以便使其与需要可操作、稳健和透明信息的用户相关。该团队汇集了气候建模和数据分析、水资源管理业务和规划以及天气和气候统计方面的专家。之所以将重点放在水资源上，是因为水在气候变化影响中发挥着核心作用。合作工作将侧重于四项主要任务，这些任务将改变EaSM产出和相关水资源缩减数据的使用：1.根据水资源管理需求，利用团队对关键物理过程的理解，确定影响决策的气候数据。2.调整和转换已建立的定量天气预报验证方法，用于气候模式评估。可获取和透明的评价统计数据将是确定“最佳做法”用途的基石。3.确定未来气候预测中出现的变化，使用新方法将变化及其不确定性与具体的气候变化影响和需要联系起来。在国家大气研究中心(NCAR)的EaSM评估框架中实施新的验证方法，它们可以为模型开发提供信息，并通过用户开发的基准丰富模型评估。将气候变化模拟与对水资源管理的影响联系起来的一个主要障碍是模型界和水业务界的不同观点，前者侧重于全球重要的地球系统进程和反馈，后者侧重于某一区域特有的地方规模进程。该项目将通过小组成员之间的广泛对话克服这一障碍，以确定关键的决策信息以及如何从项目可获得的一系列全球和区域气候数据中提取这些信息。这一努力将导致在水资源规划和运作中整合气候变化科学和数据的新方法，以及评估EaSM绩效的新工具和基准，有助于指导模型开发。该项目是NCAR社区地球系统模型的新社会维度工作组的倡议。工作组寻求让气候科学家和气候信息用户参与对话，以便更有效地利用气候模型成果。这项工作将开发用户适用的数据，并通过确定重要的、以部门为动机的气候行为措施和部门应用的不确定性来源，改进质量控制。该项目的对话将为与其他水资源管理者的互动提供一个原型，并为从事其他业务活动(例如，能源公用事业、交通部门、卫生界)的管理者提供渠道，与气候模型人员就气候变化信息进行实质性互动。

Earth System Models (EaSMs) comprehensively encapsulate the complex interactions between physical, chemical and biological processes that form Earth's climate. However, their standard data products are not directly useful for most planning and decision-making processes that are increasingly confronted with climate change. They are (i) not giving the necessary variables and quantities at (ii) the required temporal and spatial scales, nor are they (iii) sufficiently quality tested for application-critical characteristics. The current "hand-down" approach for providing EaSM data to end users leads to substantial losses of knowledge about the scenarios, the data, and the tools involved. Yet that knowledge, accompanied by transparent and accessible information about uncertainty and best practices, is critical for ensuring effective decision-making. To realize the promise of extensive EaSM investments, the challenge is therefore to properly and effectively integrate its broad capabilities with operational applications so that it can be made relevant for users who need actionable, robust and transparent information.This team brings together experts in climate modeling and data analysis, in water resource management operations and planning, and in weather and climate statistics. The focus is on water resources because of the central role of water in climate change impacts. The collaborative effort will focus on four primary tasks that will transform the use of EaSM output and related downscaled data for water resources: 1. Identify the climate data, based on water resource management needs, that influence decision-making, using the team's understanding of key physical processes. 2. Adapt and convert established quantitative weather-forecast verification methods for climate-model evaluation. Accessible and transparent evaluation statistics will be the cornerstone for establishing "best practice" uses. 3. Characterize changes seen in future climate projections, using the new methods to link the changes and their uncertainties to specific climate change impacts and needs.4. Implement the new validation methods in the evaluation framework of the EaSM of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), where they can inform model development and enrich the model assessment through user-developed benchmarks. A major hindrance in linking climate-change simulations with impacts on water-resources management is the differing perspectives of the modeling community, focused on globally important earth-system processes and feedbacks, and the water operations community, focused on local-scale processes specific to a region. The project will overcome this barrier through an extensive dialogue among the team members that identifies key decision information and how to extract it from an array of global and regional climate data available to the project. The effort will lead to new methods for integrating climate change science and data in water resource planning and operations and also new tools and benchmarks for assessing EaSM performance, useful for guiding model development.This project is an initiative of the new Societal Dimensions Working Group of the NCAR Community Earth System Model. The Working Group seeks to engage climate scientists and climate-information users in a dialogue leading to more effective use of climate model output. The work will develop user-applicable data and improve quality control by identifying important, sector-motivated measures of climate behavior and sources of uncertainty for sector applications. The project's dialogue will provide a prototype for interactions with other water managers and open avenues for those in other operational activities (e.g., energy utilities, transportation sector, health community) to engage in substantive interaction with climate modelers on climate-change information.