Performance of CMIP5 Global Climate Models for Climate Simulation in Southeast Asia

This paper evaluates the climatological temperature and precipitation for Southeast Asia covering 1901-1999 simulated by 40 different global climate models (GCMs) participating in the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) with the aim to find GCMs appropriate to be used for climate studies in the region. The simulations were evaluated using 19 different performance metrics by comparing with ground observations and reanalysis. Relative errors for each performance metric were used in order to treat all metrics with equal weight. Results show that different GCMs perform very differently. Overall errors of the best and the worst GCMs differ by 3.25 times. Five highest ranked models include CNRM-CM5-2, CNRM-CM5, BNU-ESM, CESM1-BGC and CESM-CAM5, respectively. These GCMs are appropriate to be used for climate studies in SE Asia.