1st EURO-CORDEX workshop on aerosol and land use forcing in CMIP6-CORDEX simulations

The topic of the 1st EURO-CORDEX workshop which took place on March 10, 2021 concerned the treatment of aerosol and the use of land use changes in CMIP6-CORDEX simulations.

To date, there has not been a common approach in the way aerosols are treated in RCMs, leading to discrepancies in key variables when comparing between regional models and their driving GCMs (BoƩ et al., 2020). Inputs from the FPS on aerosol indicate that taking into account aerosol variability in regional climate simulations results in more realistic representations of climate and better agreement between GCM and RCMs. At the workshop it was decided that a common approach will be followed by the EURO-CORDEX community. Aerosols in evaluation experiments will be taken from a reanalysis climatology provided by the FPS-aerosol team (to be provided in June) and regional climate modelers will be strongly encouraged to implement the aerosol climatologies of the driving GCMs in historical/projection experiments.

Evolving land use changes in RCM simulations will not be recommended in the protocol. Regional modelers however, are encouraged to join the FPS on land use changes (LUCAS) to investigate the impacts of land use/land cover changes on European climate.