International modelling collaboration

The national climate projections for Australia released in 2015 were based on global climate model simulations completed as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phase 5 (CMIP5). The Climate Change in Australia website provides access to these projections, and interactive tools and data, based on CMIP5 data. It also provides access to a limited set of data from the Australian Climate Service based on more recent global climate model simulations completed as part of CMIP phase 6 (CMIP6).

Many international climate research centres submit climate simulations from their global climate models to CMIP. The Assessment Reports of Working Group One of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make extensive use of experiments from CMIP. The most recent Assessment Report, the Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2021), made use of CMIP6 and the previous Assessment Report, the Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2013), made use of CMIP5.

There have been several advances between CMIP5 and CMIP6: more global climate models participated in CMIP6; more CMIP6 models have higher resolution and the CMIP6 models incorporate more recent scientific understanding of some climate processes. Importantly, CMIP6 projections were produced following an updated scenario set, the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs).

Australia's contribution to the CMIP6 climate simulation archive includes simulations from two versions of the ACCESS model.

To read more about the difference between CMIP5 and CMIP6, see here.