Deliverable No. 1.2 Provision of process-focused and user-relevant metrics through ESMValTool

The aim of APPLICATE is to develop enhanced predictive capacity for weather and climate in the Arctic and beyond, and to determine the influence of Arctic climate change on Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, for the benefit of policy makers, businesses and society. In order to place confidence in weather and climate predictions it is essential that weather and climate models are able to represent key processes in the atmosphere, oceans, land and cryosphere. In addition, a key goal of APPLICATE is user engagement and providing relevant information for policy-makers, businesses and society. To address these goals, Deliverable 1.2 aims to develop process-based metrics and diagnostics for the Arctic (Task 1.2.1) and co-develop metrics and diagnostics that are relevant for the stakeholders and users of APPLICATE outputs (Task 1.2.2).

To ensure that the evaluation of weather and climate models within APPLICATE is aligned with the wider scientific community, the process-based and user-relevant metrics and diagnostics have been implemented in the open-source ESMValTool software. Metrics and diagnostics were chosen to address gaps in the current capability of ESMValTool and to address APPLICATE User Group requirements. These include ocean and sea ice process- based metrics and diagnostics and user relevant diagnostics and metrics for the shipping, energy and fishing sectors.

Through Deliverable 1.2, four APPLICATE partners have further developed their capability to use and develop the ESMValTool software. Developing this capability is essential for the networking effect and wider uptake of ESMValTool at a community level. Achieving Deliverable 1.2 is an important step for APPLICATE as it sits on the critical path for the next tasks in WP1. In particular Deliverable 1.2 will enable the evaluation and assessment of the CMIP5 and CMIP6 climate models in 2018 and 2019 in Task 1.3. The metrics and diagnostics developed in WP1 will also be used to assess the improvement of weather and climate models in WP2.

As well as the activity in Deliverable 1.2, additional diagnostics and metrics will be developed later in the project. In particular, metrics and diagnostics used to describe and evaluate the linkages between the Arctic and mid-latitude atmospheric circulation (especially weather and climate extremes) will be developed in APPLICATE WP1 towards the end of 2018. Additionally, the ongoing process of user engagement within APPLICATE WP7 will undoubtedly present new opportunities to co-develop metrics and diagnostics to inform other economic sectors (e.g. strong winds for local communities and the shipping and infrastructure sectors).