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Title: An Evaluation of the Ocean and Sea Ice Climate of E3SM Using MPAS and Interannual CORE-II Forcing

Journal Article · · Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001373· OSTI ID:1560397
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [3]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC (United States)
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)

The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) is a new coupled Earth system model sponsored by the US Department of Energy. Here we present E3SM global simulations using active ocean and sea ice that are driven by the CORE–II inter–annual atmospheric forcing data set. The E3SM ocean and sea–ice components are MPAS–Ocean and MPAS–Seaice, which use the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) framework and run on unstructured horizontal meshes. For this study, grid cells vary from 30 to 60 km for the low resolution mesh and 6 to 18 km at high resolution. The vertical grid is a structured z–star coordinate and uses 60 and 80 layers for low and high resolution, respectively. The lower resolution simulation was run for five CORE cycles (310 years) with little drift in sea surface temperature or heat content. The meridional heat transport is within observational range, while the meridional overturning circulation at 26.5° N is low compared to observations. The largest temperature biases occur in the Labrador Sea and western boundary currents, and the mixed layer is deeper than observations at northern high latitudes in the winter months. In the Antarctic, maximum mixed layer depths (MLD) compare well with observations, but the spatial MLD pattern is shifted relative to observations. Sea–ice extent, volume and concentration agree well with observations. At high resolution, the sea surface height compares well with satellite observations in mean and variability.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; 89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1560397
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1508547
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-18-22149
Journal Information:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 11, Issue 5; ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 49 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

Comparison of piecewise linear change point detection with traditional analytical methods for ocean and climate data journal October 2019
The DOE E3SM Coupled Model Version 1: Overview and Evaluation at Standard Resolution journal July 2019
MPAS-Albany Land Ice (MALI): a variable-resolution ice sheet model for Earth system modeling using Voronoi grids journal January 2018
Scalability and some optimization of the Finite-volumE Sea ice–Ocean Model, Version 2.0 (FESOM2) journal January 2019

Figures / Tables (19)


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