Evaluation of Historical CMIP6 Model Simulations of Seasonal Mean Temperature over Pakistan during 1970–2014

• Main Authors: Rizwan Karim, Guirong Tan, Brian Ayugi, Hassen Babaousmail, Fei Liu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
• Series: Atmosphere
• Subjects: CMIP6; temperature; JJA; DJF; bias; RMSE
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/9/1005

This work employed recent model outputs from coupled model intercomparison project phase six to simulate surface mean temperature during the June–July–August (JJA) and December–January–February (DJF) seasons for 1970–2014 over Pakistan. The climatic research unit (CRU TS4.03) dataset was utilized as benchmark data to analyze models’ performance. The JJA season exhibited the highest mean temperature, whilst DJF displayed the lowest mean temperature in the whole study period. The JJA monthly empirical cumulative distribution frequency (ECDF) range (26 to 28 °C) was less than that of DJF (7 to 10 °C) since JJA matched closely to CRU. The JJA and DJF seasons are warming, with higher warming trends in winters than in summers. On temporal scale, models performed better in JJA with overall low bias, low RMSE (root mean square error), and higher positive CC (correlation coefficient) values. DJF performance was undermined with higher bias and RMSE with weak positive correlation estimates. Overall, CanESM5, CESM2, CESM2-WACCM, GFDL-CM4, HadGEM-GC31-LL, MPI-ESM1-2-LR, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, and MRI-ESM-0 performed better for JJA and DJF.