Paper Reviewed
Wei, K., Xu, T., Du, Z., Gong, H. and Xie, B. 2014. How well do the current state-of-the-art CMIP5 models characterize the climatology of the East Asian winter monsoon? Climate Dynamics 43: 1241-1255.

Setting the stage for their study, Wei et al. note that the East Asian Winter Monsoon (EAWM) influences not only East Asia but also convection and sea surface temperatures near the maritime continent (Chang et al., 1979; Bueh and Ji, 1999), the Australian summer monsoon (Zhang and Zhang, 2010), the climate of North America (Yang et al., 2002) the evolution, intensity and periodicity of ENSO (Lau and Peng, 1987; Huang et al., 2004; Li et al., 2007) and the Asian Summer Monsoon (Sun and Sun, 1994; Chen et al., 2000; Yan et al., 2011), which facts point to the importance of climate models being able to adequately represent the EAWM, which much-needed skill is the reason why Wei et al. conducted their evaluation of the ability of the most up-to-date CMIP5 models - plus some earlier CMIP3 models - to accomplish this important task.

This significant endeavor revealed that (1) "both the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models overestimate the precipitation over the East Asia oceanic region, that (2) "the overestimation of precipitation by the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models is most likely due to the overestimation of convective clouds in East Asia," that in the case of the CMIP5 models (3) "the near surface northerlies are weaker than suggested by observations and the CMIP3 models," that (4) "the zonal sea level pressure difference between the Siberian high and Aleutian low is weaker than in observations and the CMIP3 models," that (5) the 500-hPa major trough strength is too strong in East Asia," and that (6) "the cold bias still exists in the current CMIP5 models."

In light of these several demonstrable shortcomings - and actual regressions, as in the cases of points 3 and 4 above - the five Chinese scientists conclude that "additional model improvements are still required to better simulate the EAWM."

References
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