Using 26 climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), climatology and the interannual variability of the annual mean Hadley circulation are evaluated. The results show that most of 26 models perform well in simulating the spatial structure of the climatology of the annual mean Hadley circulation, but the results derived from these models are generally weaker than that derived from the reanalysis dataset. Eighteen models can properly simulate well the asymmetric mode and symmetric mode of the annual mean Hadley circulation variability. Two models can only simulate asymmetric mode or symmetric mode and the other two models simulate reversed sequences of asymmetric mode and symmetric mode.

The possible reason why some models cannot properly simulate the asymmetric mode and symmetric mode is that these models do not properly simulate the structure of zonal mean sea surface temperature (SST). Especially, not properly simulating variances of symmetric and asymmetric components of the SSTA will lead to reversed sequence of symmetric mode and asymmetric mode. And not properly simulated either symmetric or asymmetric component of the SSTA will lead to inability in simulating symmetric mode or asymmetric mode. On the other hand, some models properly simulate the asymmetric mode and symmetric mode, but do not properly simulate the responses to SST change. These models can not reflect the air sea coupling processes in associated with the Hadley circulation, therefore they should be taken more care when classify the models into groups.