Thanks for writing up these nice ideas! I think it would be helpful to split this proposal into a few concrete projects for the hackathon. From a technical perspective, the questions laid out here suggest the need to develop tools to analyze spatial variability (but I’m less familiar with the existing packages!)
Here are some ideas:
1.a. What are the spatial differences between ocean heat uptake and ocean carbon uptake in the CMIP6 models? While there are areas of the ocean that will be important for both heat uptake and carbon uptake, given the distinct sources, spatial patterns of the forcing and sources and sinks of heat and carbon in the oceans each will also be dominated by different regions. Distinguishing the patterns of both heat and carbon uptake (and the differences between them) could aid understanding the of biotic v abiotic controls on ocean carbon uptake in the models and the sources of uncertainty in trends.
2.a. Given the disagreement in sign of the changes in marine ecosystem variables across CMIP5 models, it will be an interesting challenge to find a time of emergence of the forced signal. It would be interesting to work with the Can We Better Quantify the “Time of Emergence” of Regional Climate Change Signals using CMIP6? project to adapt the approaches to ocean and biogeochemical variables. One question that I have is how regions defined by machine learning may depend on the mean state of the models.
2.b. A specific example of examining an ecosystem driver is laid out in Ocean oxygen in a warming world