Evaluation of Historical Diurnal Temperature Range Trends in CMIP5 Models

AbstractDiurnal temperature range (DTR) is a useful index of climatic change in addition to mean temperature changes. Observational records indicate that DTR has decreased over the last 50 yr because of differential changes in minimum and maximum temperatures. However, modeled changes in DTR in previous climate model simulations of this period are smaller than those observed, primarily because of an overestimate of changes in maximum temperatures. This present study examines DTR trends using the latest generation of global climate models participating in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and utilizes the novel CMIP5 detection and attribution experimental design of variously forced historical simulations (natural-only, greenhouse gas–only, and all anthropogenic and natural forcings). Comparison of observed and modeled changes in DTR over the period of 1951–2005 again reveals that global DTR trends are lower in model simulations than observed across the 27-member multimodel ensemb...

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