The WCRP Data Advisory Council’s (WDAC’s) Observations for Model Evaluation Task Team seeks recommendations for data sets to be considered for inclusion in obs4MIPs.

Obs4MIPs refers to a limited collection of well-established and documented datasets that have been organized according to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5 and CMIP6 currently in preparation) model output requirements and made available on the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Each obs4MIPs dataset corresponds to a field that is output in (or derivable from) one or more of the CMIP5 or CMIP6 experiments. This technical alignment of observational products with climate model output can greatly facilitate model data comparisons.

At present, obs4MIPs is limited to regularly gridded datasets, with a focus on global or nearglobal satellite data products. Past contributions have mostly consisted of monthly, global data products. Consideration and emphasis on higher frequency, as well as basin- to global-scale gridded in-situ data sets is increasing. Of central importance is the continued obs4MIPs requirement for demonstrated (e.g. peer-reviewed publications) model evaluation uses of the proposed data set(s). Of particular interest for this call is data products that are of direct relevance to CMIP6 endorsed model intercomparison projects(http://www.wcrp-climate.org/modelling-wgcm-mip-catalogue/modelling-wgcm-cmip6-endorsed-mips). The WDAC Task Team encourages recommendations for new obs4MIPs datasets to be made between December 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016, and is committed to responding no later than June 1 2016. For instructions on the procedures for recommending a dataset for obs4MIPs, please refer to: https://www.earthsystemcog.org/projects/obs4mips/how_to_contribute.

Questions should be addressed to D. Waliser (duane.e.waliser@jpl.nasa.gov) and P. Gleckler (gleckler1@llnl.gov).