Mean state results from the PCMDI Metrics Package (PMP) are used to produce “quick-look” summary diagrams for the CMIP multi-model ensemble. The focus is on the “Historical” (coupled) and “AMIP” (atmospheric only) simulations which are well-suited for comparing with observations. We update these summaries regularly as new simulations are contributed to CMIP6, quality-control and presentation are improved, and observational datasets are updated. We provide two methods to interactively explore these quick-look results, one as absolute errors and another as relative errors:
Interactive Parallel Coordinate Plots (IPCPs) are used to dynamically visualize the mean climate statistics generated with the PMP. In an IPCP, each vertical axis represents a different scalar measure gauging some aspect of model fidelity. The results displayed in the IPCP are absolute error measures, i.e., they are not normalized as in the portrait plots (below). Under the default configuration, results from each model are displayed as symbols. To facilitate comparison of a subset of models, the user can highlight individual models by selecting a symbol on the plot or from the legend. A common application is to select two versions of the same (or different) model to enable their performance differences to be contrasted against the backdrop of results from the multi-model ensemble (symbols). The current release allows the user to display CMIP5 and CMIP6 results as for different statistics and regions.
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Gleckler, P. J., K. E. Taylor, and C. Doutriaux, 2008: Performance metrics for model evaluation. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D06104, doi: 10.1029/2007JD008972.
Taylor, K. E., 2001: Summarizing multiple aspects of model performance in a single diagram. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 7183–7192, doi: 10.1029/2000JD900719.