{"id":5842,"date":"2022-03-16T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T08:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/?p=5842"},"modified":"2023-11-22T09:30:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T08:30:25","slug":"making-climate-models-more-accurate-by-improving-their-tuning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/features\/making-climate-models-more-accurate-by-improving-their-tuning\/","title":{"rendered":"Making climate models more accurate by improving their tuning"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Making climate models more accurate by improving their tuning<\/h1><\/div>[vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Earth\u2019s climate is a very complex system, and it is not easy to understand with all its components \u2013 the main ones being ocean, land, atmosphere, and sea ice. Nevertheless, scientists have been trying for decades to predict future changes in climate with numerical models. These models keep getting better, but all components have systematic errors to some degree. Decreasing errors and thereby predicting the future climate more reliably will benefit society by allowing us to better adapt to climate change.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h3>\n

The ocean biogeochemistry and its effect on Earth\u2019s climate<\/strong><\/h4>\n

One important component of the climate system is the\u00a0ocean<\/strong>. Processes involving the ocean and going on in the ocean play a big part in how Earth\u2019s climate changes over time. The ocean\u2019s biogeochemistry is of special interest to climate scientists \u2013 this covers biological, geological, and chemical processes \u2013 because of the\u00a0carbon cycle<\/strong>. Increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere (as CO2<\/sub>) lead to increasing temperatures worldwide, and we humans release more and more carbon into the atmosphere by burning more and more fossil fuels. This carbon in the atmosphere enters the ocean over time and it can be taken up by small plants there, called\u00a0phytoplankton<\/strong>. When phytoplankton is eaten by animals in the ocean and those die and sink to the seafloor, carbon is removed from the atmosphere and ocean, and captured. Thanks to this cycle, the ocean and its inhabitants contribute to slowing down the CO2<\/sub>\u00a0increase in the atmosphere, thereby affecting the climate. It is crucial to understand how carbon capture and storage processes will evolve in the future.<\/p>\n

The problem with using ocean biogeochemistry in models<\/strong><\/h4>\n

But to predict future climate change reliably, numerical models need really good information on ocean biogeochemistry dynamics. Today, climate models get this information from laboratory experiments, and scientists apply the results to the ocean worldwide. The ocean biogeochemistry is defined by many parameters (values for different processes) that are included in climate models, and these parameters get slightly adjusted in accordance with observations from the ocean. This adjustment process is called\u00a0tuning<\/strong>. Problematic with that approach is that many slightly wrong values can easily build up to large errors. It is then challenging to identify the main source of error as there are many parameters that could be the cause.<\/p>\n

A new approach to make the ocean biogeochemistry of climate models less biased<\/strong><\/h4>\n

A group of researchers under the lead of Tarkeshwar Singh (Climate Dynamics and Prediction Group at the Nansen Center) and for the project EU-TRIATLAS<\/a>\u00a0took on the challenge to improve the tuning method \u2013 how to best estimate biogeochemical parameters of the ocean. The findings were\u00a0recently published<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Frontiers in Marine Science<\/em>. Their successful approach uses observations from the ocean and a data assimilation technique to estimate\u00a0regional biogeochemistry parameters<\/strong>\u00a0in climate models very efficiently. Singh and his colleagues show that their new tuning method drastically reduces errors in the model. This method will help to provide more reliable information on climate change in the future. \u00a0They tested their approach in an idealized configuration (this means the observations used were not real, but produced by a model), and it now needs to be demonstrated in a real framework (this means the observations will be real-world data). This approach can be applied to all components of the Earth System, not just the ocean \u2013 and it may present a new way towards better tuned and more efficient climate models![\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1695033709348{padding-right: 0px !important;}”]

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The TRIATLAS<\/a> project<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Main Objective<\/strong>: To assess the status of the South and Tropical Atlantic marine ecosystem and develop a framework for predicting its future changes, from months to decades, by combining ecosystem observations, climate-based ecosystem prediction and information on future socio-economic and ecosystem service changes, and thus to contribute to the sustainable management of human activities in the Atlantic Ocean as a whole.<\/p><\/div>

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Publication<\/h1>\n

Frontiers in Marine Science:<\/strong>
\n“Estimation of Ocean Biogeochemical Parameters in an Earth System Model Using the Dual One Step Ahead Smoother: A Twin Experiment.”<\/p>

Read the article\"Pil<\/a><\/p><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1693479579188{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column_text] Earth\u2019s climate is a very complex system, and it is not easy to understand with all its components \u2013 the main ones being ocean, land, atmosphere, and sea ice. Nevertheless, scientists have been trying for decades to predict future changes in climate with numerical models. These models keep getting better, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 15:36:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5842"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5984,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842\/revisions\/5984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}