Progress and Trends in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Understanding of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and its research progress and applications is critical to answer scientific questions related to climate change. While numerous scientific papers based on CMIP have been published, there is no quantitative study examining scientific research on climate variability, predictability, and change supported by CMIP. Therefore, the statistical characteristics of CMIP-related publications, including journals, disciplines, co-occurrence and burst detection of keywords, and bibliographic coupling, were analyzed using bibliometric analysis. The results show that research based on CMIP has increased exponentially from 2000 to 2023. About 20% of the research was published in the Journal of Climate and Climate Dynamics . CMIP-related research spanned several disciplines, including meteorology, atmospheric science, geosciences, and environmental sciences. The United States, China, and the United Kingdom ranked top three for CMIP publications. The prominent focus of related research involved the whole climate system, including climate change and variability, climate behavior, the carbon cycle, sea surface temperature, sea ice, modeling, bias correction, simulations, climate sensitivity, extreme events, soil moisture, hydrology, and future change. This study can help relevant scientists better understand the developments and trends of CMIP research, thereby facilitating the use of CMIP data.