CMIP6 is the latest phase of collaboration under the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). CMIP6 data are the most current global climate model data available. The data are scientifically robust and provide the foundation for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Reports. 

CMIP is an international scientific collaboration under the United Nations World Climate Research Programme. This initiative involves climate modelling teams from around the world.  CMIP sets the experimental design protocol and recommends core sets of experiments for the climate modelling community to undertake. The goal of CMIP is to better understand past, present and future climate changes through assessments of model performance during the historical period and quantification of the causes of the range in future projections. The CMIP collaboration designs a set of standard simulations to allow for cross-comparison of results to detect where models agree and disagree. The CMIP process furthers our understanding of climate modelling, enables modelling improvements, and ensures scientifically robust future climate projections.

Forty-nine climate modelling groups, running 100 climate models, are taking part in this latest phase of CMIP.  In comparison, CMIP5 included 40 global climate models created by 20 climate-modelling groups.