Paper Reviewed
Jiang, D., Tian, Z. and Lang, X. 2016. Reliability of climate models for China through the IPCC Third to Fifth Assessment Reports. International Journal of Climatology 36: 1114-1133.

Writing in the International Journal of Climatology, Jiang et al. (2016) introduce their study by noting that based on observations and reanalysis data, they evaluated 77 coupled global climate models (GCMs) participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third, Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports in terms of their ability to simulate the mean state and year-to-year variability of air temperature measured at a height of 2 meters above ground level, along with precipitation and the climatological East Asian monsoon for the latter decades of the 20th century.

This work revealed, as the three Chinese researchers report, that (1,2) "most GCMs overestimate the spatial variability of annual and spring temperatures," as well as (3) "precipitation (except in spring)." In addition, they note that (4) "most GCMs still have cold biases, particularly in winter and autumn," and that they (5) "underestimate the southeast-northwest precipitation gradient over the country," and (6) lack the ability to predict precipitation, which (7) "generally decreases from spring via summer and autumn to winter."

In summary, Jiang et al. conclude that (8) there has been "little or no systematic improvement for precipitation" throughout China, as viewed to date by the IPCC. And last of all, they additionally write that (9,10) "the strength of monsoon circulation is underestimated over East Asia in winter and over southern East Asia in summer."