PDRMIP: A precipitation driver and response model intercomparison project—Protocol and preliminary results

The globally averaged intensity of extreme precipitation also changes more rapidly than the globally averaged precipitation rate. While some aspects of the regional variation in precipitation predicted by climate models appear robust, there is still a large degree of intermodel differences unaccounted for.

Individual drivers of climate change initially alter the energy budget of the atmosphere, leading to distinct rapid adjustments involving changes in precipitation. Differences in how these rapid adjustment processes manifest themselves within models are likely to explain a large fraction of the present model spread and better quantifications are needed to improve precipitation predictions. Here, the authors introduce the Precipitation Driver and Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP), where a set of idealized experiments designed to understand the role of different climate forcing mechanisms were performed by a large set of climate models.