PCMDI’s mission is to develop improved methods and tools for the diagnosis and evaluation of Earth System Models (ESMs). The PCMDI metrics package is used to objectively compare results from ESMs with observations using well-established statistical tests. Results are produced in the context of all model simulations contributed to CMIP6 and earlier CMIP phases.
PCMDI leads research understanding Earth System drivers and responses leading to climate variability and change. This work has considered a wide-range of changes to the global climate system and included analyses of atmospheric temperature, precipitable water, ocean heat content and other Earth system aspects.
PCMDI conducts extensive research to try and reduce uncertainty in climate sensitivity, with a focus on its primary driver, cloud feedback. This includes developing advanced diagnostics for evaluating cloud feedbacks, using cloud controlling factors to observationally constrain feedbacks, and discovering emergent constraints.