IPSL contribution to CMIP5

The Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) is part of about 20 climate modelling groups involved around the world who have actively engaged back in 2008 in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) and the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). CMIP5 coordinated a freely available state-of-the-art multimodel dataset designed to advance our knowledge of climate variability and climate change.

Details about IPSL-CM5

IPSL has contributed to CMIP5 with IPSL-CM5, the fifth version of the IPSL model. This model is a full earth system model, with two different sets of physical models: the IPSL-CM5A is an extension of IPSL-CM4 with NEMO for the ocean whereas the IPSL-CM5B has an atmospheric model with very different physical parametrisations. For the different versions of the IPSL-CM5A models that participate to the CMIP5 project, the atmospheric model has two standard resolutions: the low resolution is 1.9° x 3.75° (96x96xL39) known as IPSL-CM5A-LR and the mid-resolution is 1.25° x 2.5° (144x143xL39) known as IPSL-CM5A-MR. IPSL-CM5B only has the low resolution, IPSL-CM5B-LR.

Documentation and references

A fundamental sub-set of downloadable manuscripts provides a detailed description and evaluation of coupled models of IPSL and of their individual components. Other documentation relating to the use of IPSL climate models are available.

Simulation description

Several tables describe the IPSL simulations for CMIP5 especially about the used forcings and the historicalMisc members. The IPSL-CM5 errata is also available.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

We have gathered all frequently asked questions here. Thank you to consult it before asking your question to the following mailing list. We welcome any feedbacks, questions or comments: ipsl-cmip5@ipsl.fr

Data access

The results of the short- and long-term experiments performed with the IPSL-CM5 model may be obtained and analysed through different tools and services, including the IPSL ESGF node.

Analysing CMIP5 data at IPSL

This section aims to provide and document the software stack developed by the Prodiguer team to facilitate CMIP5 analysis at IPSL. A IPSL-CICLAD cluster access is required to use the full range of tools (see ​https://mesocentre.ipsl.fr/ouverture/).