State of the art impact models characterizing aspects of the interaction between
the human and Earth systems require decade-long time series of relatively high
frequency, spatially resolved and often multiple variables representing
climatic impact-drivers. Most commonly these are derived from Earth System
Model (ESM) output, according to a standard, limited set of future scenarios,
the latest being the SSP-RCPs run under CMIP6-ScenarioMIP [@Eyringetal2016;@ONeilletal2016].
Often, however, impact modeling seeks to explore new scenarios, and/or needs a
larger set of initial condition ensemble members than are typically available to
quantify the effects of ESM internal variability. In addition, the recognition that
the human and Earth systems are fundamentally intertwined, and may feature
potentially significant feedback loops, is making integrated, simultaneous modeling
of the coupled human-Earth system increasingly necessary, if computationally
challenging [@thornton2017biospheric].
For the dual needs of the creation of new scenario realizations and the
simplified representation of ESM behavior in a coupled human-Earth system
modeling framework, climate model output emulators can be the answer.
We proposed a new, comprehensive approach to such emulation, STITCHES [@tebaldi2022stitches].
The corresponding `stitches` Python package uses existing archives of ESMs’
scenario experiments to construct new scenarios, or enrich existing initial
condition ensembles. Its output has the same characteristics of the ESM output
emulated: multivariate (spanning potentially all variables that the ESM has
saved), spatially resolved (down to the native grid of the ESM), and as high
frequency as the original output has been saved at.
Published: May 15, 2024
Citation
Snyder A.C., K.R. Dorheim, C. Tebaldi, and C.R. Vernon. 2024.STITCHES: a Python package to amalgamate existing Earth system model output into new scenario realizations.Journal of Open Source Software 9, no. 97:Art. No. 5525.PNNL-SA-179443.doi:10.21105/joss.05525