Decision makers require reliable estimates of future climate change at a range of time and space scales. The primary tools for delivering such information are Earth System Models (ESMs), which describe the important physical, dynamical and biogeochemical processes in the climate system. While ESMs are highly complex, they remain simplified representations of the real Earth System, exhibiting a number of systematic errors that reduce the reliability of future projections. Improving the realism of European ESMs is a high priority in order to deliver reliable estimates of future climate change.

Improving Earth System Models

Project objectives

The key goal of the project is to improve our ability to simulate the Earth system, thereby enabling more reliable projections of future climate. This will provide policy makers with a more concrete evidence base on which to develop climate change adaptation and mitigation policies, both at regional and global scales.

 

Four areas of primary importance for reducing systematic biases in Earth System Models (ESM), and resulting uncertainty in estimates of future climate change, are being targeted:
• The global carbon cycle;
• Atmospheric convection and coupled tropical circulation;
• Coastal and equatorial ocean upwelling; and
• Land surface-climate interactions.

 

The ESMs will also be used to investigate the risk of abrupt changes to potential Tipping Points in the climate system, such as the stability of the Atlantic Ocean circulation and the stability of tropical and boreal forest ecosystems to global warming.

 

This is EMBRACE

EMBRACE is an EU FP7 project under the Environment programme: Climate Change, pollution and risks, running Nov 2011- Nov 2015.

EMBRACE leaflet (1.3 MB, pdf)

Three Examples of research areas targeted by EMBRACE

Global Carbon Cycle

Recent efforts have begun to extend Global Climate Models (GCMs) towards Earth System Models (ESMs), where the physical-dynamical GCM also includes key biogeochemical cycles important in determining the Earth’s response to increasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. EMBRACE aims to improve the representation of key carbon cycle processes in European ESMs, leading to more accurate and reliable future projections.

Atmospheric convection and coupled tropical circulation

Precipitating deep convection is central to many aspects of the tropical climate and its probable response to increased greenhouse gas concentrations. Due to the range of complex processes involved and their interactions across a range of space and timescales, representing moist convection continues to be a major challenge in present-day Earth System Models. EMBRACE aims to significantly improve the parameterization of deep convection and its link to important modes of tropical climate variability in current ESMs.

Land Surface - Climate Interactions

Land-surface processes play a key role in regional climate. EMBRACE will improve the representation of vegetation and soil processes in European ESMs, increasing the reliability of projections of summer drought and heat wave risk.