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GFDL Contributions:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 6th Assessment Report

GFDL scientists played an important role in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when it was published in August 2021. GFDL was one of several international modeling centers participating in the IPCC, contributing 5 of the models used for climate assessments in the report. World-wide, more than 234 scientists worked on Working Group I’s report on the physical science basis, for about seven years. Eleven GFDL scientists contributed to 7 chapters of the report as authors or editors.

CONTRIBUTORS

Eleven GFDL scientists were among the 234 international experts contributing to the Working Group I report. Our scientists contributed to chapters covering a broad range of topics, including sea level change, extreme events, future global climate, regional impact and risk assessment, global carbon, short-lived climate forcers, and the earth’s energy budget. Another 10 GFDL scientists served as expert reviewers of the report.

MODELS AND DATA

GFDL has had a central role in each assessment of the IPCC since 1990, when their first report was issued. AR6 relied on 5 GFDL models for climate assessments. GFDL used considerable computational power in support of the report, contributing more than 168 TB of data from experiments. The climate science community downloaded nearly 200 TB of this data, roughly equivalent to streaming 1,700,000 hours of music.