An overview of ice sheet model intercomparison projects: From EISMINT to ISMIP6

Ice sheet models are key to understanding the past, present, and future state of Greenland and Antarctica. As models are being developed and altered to reflect new understanding of ice sheet processes or due to novel computational techniques, their complexity increases. It can become challenging to pinpoint why different models give different solutions or behaviors. Model intercomparison projects provide a unique platform to compare models against each other and sometimes against observations or analytical solutions. In this article, an insight is presented into the history and range of model intercomparison projects used by the ice sheet modeling community. The reader is given a description of the major intercomparison projects as well as key lessons learned from these efforts.