Model Development
Earth System Model Development
Earth System Models (ESMs) are important tools for understanding Earth’s climate variability and change arising from the interactions among the different Earth system components (viz., atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere, biosphere, including human activities). The Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR) at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, focuses on the development of the IITM Earth System Model (IITM-ESM) to address science of climate change, including detection, attribution and future projections of global and regional climate and also create climate modelling capabilities in India. Long term (multi-century) simulations of the preindustrial and present-day climate and future projections were performed using the IITM-ESM, to assess climate variability and change with special focus on the South Asian monsoon (Swapna et al., 2018) . The IITM-ESM participated in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase-6 (CMIP6) of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) and contributed to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6), the first time from India (Masson-Delmotte et al., 2021). Earth System Modelling activities will enable better understanding of science of climate change and provide scientific input for detection and attribution of climate change over the Indian region and frame climate adaptation and mitigation policies.