Development of Climate and Earth System Models in China: Past Achievements and New CMIP6 Results

The Earth-Climate System Model (ECSM) is an important platform for multi-disciplinary and multi-sphere integration research, and its development is at the frontier of international geosciences, especially in the field of global change. The research and development (R&D) of ECSM in China began in the 1980s and have achieved great progress. In China, ECSMs are now mainly developed at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, ministries, and universities. Following a brief review of the development history of Chinese ECSMs, this paper summarized the technical characteristics of nine Chinese ECSMs participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 and preliminarily assessed the basic performances of four Chinese models in simulating the global climate and the climate in East Asia. The projected changes of global precipitation and surface air temperature and the associated relationship with the equilibrium climate sensitivity under four shared socioeconomic path scenarios were also discussed. Finally, combined with the international situation, from the perspective of further improvement, eight directions were proposed for the future development of Chinese ECSMs.