Double ITCZ in Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Models: From CMIP3 to CMIP5

Recent progress in reducing the double Intertropical Convergence Zone bias in coupled climate models is examined based on multimodel ensembles of historical climate simulations from Phase 3 and Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5). Biases common to CMIP3 and CMIP5 models include spurious precipitation maximum in the southeastern Pacific, warmer sea surface temperature (SST), weaker easterly, and stronger meridional wind divergences away from the equator relative to observations. It is found that there is virtually no improvement in all these measures from the CMIP3 ensemble to the CMIP5 ensemble models. The five best models in the two ensembles as measured by the spatial correlations are also assessed. No progress can be identified in the subensembles of the five best models from CMIP3 to CMIP5 even though more models participated in CMIP5; the biases of excessive precipitation and overestimated SST in southeastern Pacific are even worse in the CMIP5 models.