The Earth system model EC-Earth3 for contributions to CMIP6 is documented here, with its flexible coupling framework, major model configurations, a methodology for ensuring the simulations are comparable across different high-performance computing (HPC) systems, and with the physical performance of base configurations over the historical period. The variety of possible configurations and sub-models reflects the broad interests in the EC-Earth community. EC-Earth3 key performance metrics demonstrate physical behavior and biases well within the frame known from recent CMIP models. With improved physical and dynamic features, new Earth system model (ESM) components, community tools, and largely improved physical performance compared to the CMIP5 version, EC-Earth3 represents a clear step forward for the only European community ESM. We demonstrate here that EC-Earth3 is suited for a range of tasks in CMIP6 and beyond.

A multi-model ensemble-based system for seasonal-to-interannual prediction has been developed in a joint European project known as DEMETER (Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble Prediction System for Seasonal to Interannual Prediction). The DEMETER system comprises seven global atmosphere–ocean coupled models, each running from an ensemble of initial conditions. Comprehensive hindcast evaluation demonstrates the enhanced reliability and skill of the multimodel ensemble over a more conventional single-model ensemble approach. In addition, innovative examples of the application of seasonal ensemble forecasts in malaria and crop yield prediction are discussed. The strategy followed in DEMETER deals with important problems such as communication across disciplines, downscaling of climate simulations, and use of probabilistic forecast information in the applications sector, illustrating the economic value of seasonal-to-interannual prediction for society as a whole.

Advances in simulating atmospheric variability with the ECMWF model are presented that stem from revisions of the convection and diffusion parametrizations. The revisions concern in particular the introduction of a variable convective adjustment time‐scale, a convective entrainment rate proportional to the environmental relative humidity, as well as free tropospheric diffusion coefficients for heat and momentum based on Monin–Obukhov functional dependencies.The forecasting system is evaluated against analyses and observations using high‐resolution medium‐range deterministic and ensemble forecasts, monthly and seasonal integrations, and decadal integrations with coupled atmosphere‐ocean models. The results show a significantly higher and more realistic level of model activity in terms of the amplitude of tropical and extratropical mesoscale, synoptic and planetary perturbations. Importantly, with the higher variability and reduced bias not only the probabilistic scores are improved, but also the midlatitude deterministic scores in the short and medium ranges. Furthermore, for the first time the model is able to represent a realistic spectrum of convectively coupled equatorial Kelvin and Rossby waves, and maintains a realistic amplitude of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) during monthly forecasts. However, the propagation speed of the MJO is slower than observed. The higher tropical tropospheric wave activity also results in better stratospheric temperatures and winds through the deposition of momentum.The partitioning between convective and resolved precipitation is unaffected by the model changes with roughly 62% of the total global precipitation being of the convective type. Finally, the changes in convection and diffusion parametrizations resulted in a larger spread of the ensemble forecasts, which allowed the amplitude of the initial perturbations in the ensemble prediction system to decrease by 30%. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society

This paper provides an update on research in the relatively new and fast-moving field of decadal climate prediction, and addresses the use of decadal climate predictions not only for potential users of such information but also for improving our understanding of processes in the climate system. External forcing influences the predictions throughout, but their contributions to predictive skill become dominant after most of the improved skill from initialization with observations vanishes after about 6–9 years. Recent multimodel results suggest that there is relatively more decadal predictive skill in the North Atlantic, western Pacific, and Indian Oceans than in other regions of the world oceans. Aspects of decadal variability of SSTs, like the mid-1970s shift in the Pacific, the mid-1990s shift in the northern North Atlantic and western Pacific, and the early-2000s hiatus, are better represented in initialized hindcasts compared to uninitialized simulations. There is evidence of higher skill in initialized multimodel ensemble decadal hindcasts than in single model results, with multimodel initialized predictions for near-term climate showing somewhat less global warming than uninitialized simulations. Some decadal hindcasts have shown statistically reliable predictions of surface temperature over various land and ocean regions for lead times of up to 6–9 years, but this needs to be investigated in a wider set of models. As in the early days of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) prediction, improvements to models will reduce the need for bias adjustment, and increase the reliability, and thus usefulness, of decadal climate predictions in the future.

The enhanced warming trend and precipitation decline in the Mediterranean region make it a climate change hotspot. We compare projections of multiple Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and Phase 6 (CMIP6) historical and future scenario simulations to quantify the impacts of the already changing climate in the region. In particular, we investigate changes in temperature and precipitation during the 21st century following scenarios RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 for CMIP5 and SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 from CMIP6, as well as for the HighResMIP high-resolution experiments. A model weighting scheme is applied to obtain constrained estimates of projected changes, which accounts for historical model performance and inter-independence in the multi-model ensembles, using an observational ensemble as reference. Results indicate a robust and significant warming over the Mediterranean region during the 21st century over all seasons, ensembles and experiments. The temperature changes vary between CMIPs, CMIP6 being the ensemble that projects a stronger warming. The Mediterranean amplified warming with respect to the global mean is mainly found during summer. The projected Mediterranean warming during the summer season can span from 1.83 to 8.49 ^∘C in CMIP6 and 1.22 to 6.63 ^∘C in CMIP5 considering three different scenarios and the 50 % of inter-model spread by the end of the century. Contrarily to temperature projections, precipitation changes show greater uncertainties and spatial heterogeneity. However, a robust and significant precipitation decline is projected over large parts of the region during summer by the end of the century and for the high emission scenario (−49 % to −16 % in CMIP6 and −47 % to −22 % in CMIP5). While there is less disagreement in projected precipitation than in temperature between CMIP5 and CMIP6, the latter shows larger precipitation declines in some regions. Results obtained from the model weighting scheme indicate larger warming trends in CMIP5 and a weaker warming trend in CMIP6, thereby reducing the difference between the multi-model ensemble means from 1.32 ^∘C before weighting to 0.68 ^∘C after weighting.