The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has released a new report, Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations. The research for the report focused on the performance of climate simulation models, indicating what models can simulate well and where the models need improvements.

The report states that “the science of climate modeling has matured through finer spatial resolution, the inclusion of a greater number of physical processes, and through comparison to a rapidly expanding array of
observations.”

The report outlines advancements, but also shows that there are a number of systematic biases with the current models, particularly at predicting precipitation at regional scales. The report notes that “an average over the set of models clearly provides climate simulation superior to any individual model,” and concludes that “no current model is superior to others in all respects, but rather different models have differing strengths and weaknesses.”

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