The Impact of “Hot Models” on a CMIP6 Ensemble Used by Climate Service Providers in Canada: Do Global Constraints Lead to Appreciable Differences in Regional Projections?

Abstract

Abstract Canadian climate service providers offer projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to help inform climate change mitigation and adaptation decisions. CMIP6 includes several “hot” climate models whose sensitivity to greenhouse gas forcings exceeds the likely range inferred from multiple lines of evidence. Global warming estimates assessed in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were reduced by applying observational constraints on the historical rate of warming to the CMIP6 ensemble. This study assesses whether globally constrained CMIP6 projections for Canada are appreciably different from unconstrained projections. Two constraints are considered: one that removes models whose transient climate response lies outside the AR6 assessed range (TCRlikely), and the other that weights models to match the assessed distribution of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECSall). Both constraints lead to appreciably cooler and drier projections than the unconstrained ensemble, with the strongest reductions seen in the upper end of the ensemble range, high-emissions scenario, end-of-century time period, and northern regions of Canada. In this case, constrained projections of annual mean temperature are 2°–3°C cooler than the unconstrained projections, whereas projections of annual total precipitation are typically 20%–40% drier. Appreciable differences are also detected in the ensemble median of temperature extreme indices. Based on these results, it is recommended that a constrained ensemble be considered for regional projections to avoid the “hot model” problem. Alternatively, projections can be communicated conditional on a specified level of global warming, with global constraints then used to inform the timing of the warming level exceedance.