We present tobac (Tracking and Object-Based Analysis of Clouds), a newly developed framework for tracking and analysing clouds in different types of datasets. It provides a flexible new way to include the evolution of individual clouds in a wide range of analyses. It is developed as a community project to provide a common basis for the inclusion of existing tracking algorithms and the development of new analyses that involve tracking clouds and other features in geoscientific research.

This article proposes a methodological framework for the model evaluation of high-resolution urban climate simulations and demonstrates its effectiveness with a case study in a fast-urbanizing area (Shenzhen and Hong Kong SAR, China). It is intended to (again) remind urban climate modellers of the necessity of conducting systematic model evaluations in urban-scale climatology modelling and reduce ambiguous or arbitrary modelling practices.

We explored shrub parameters representing sagebrush ecosystems within a dynamic vegetation model and estimated gross primary production (GPP) for two sagebrush sites in the northern Great Basin. Comparison with observations from eddy covariance (EC) tower data showed our modeled results were encouraging, although some seasonal underestimates were apparent. We believe our findings on preliminary parameterization of shrub PFT is an important step towards subsequent studies on shrubland ecosystems.

Dust storms are thought to be a worldwide societal issue, and numerical modeling is an effective way to help us to predict dust events. Here we present the first comprehensive evaluation of dust emission modules in four commonly used air quality models for northeastern China. The results showed that most of these models were able to capture this dust event and indicated the dust source maps should be carefully selected or replaced with a new one that is constructed with local data.

This article describes the IFS-AER aerosol module used operationally in the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) cycle 45R1, operated by the ECMWF in the framework of the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Services (CAMS). We describe the different parameterizations for aerosol sources, sinks, and how the aerosols are integrated in the larger atmospheric composition forecasting system. The skill of PM and AOD simulations against observations is improved compared to the older cycle 40R2.

GlobSim is a tool for simulating land-surface processes and phenomena at point locations globally, even where no site-specific meteorological observations exist. This is important because simulation can add insight to the analysis of observations or help in anticipating climate-change impacts and because site-specific simulation can help in model evaluation.

For this paper, a novel high spatial-resolution fire emission model based on the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) modelling framework was developed and compared to a coarser-resolution version of the same model. Our findings highlight the importance of fine spatial resolution when modelling global-scale fire emissions, especially considering the comparison of model pixels to individual field measurements and the model representation of heterogeneity in the landscape.

High concentrations of ozone in ambient air are hazardous to the whole ecosystem. The impact of ozone-induced damage on vegetation and agricultural plants in combination with advancing climate change may affect food security in the future. The process of dry deposition is important for predicting and understanding the observed surface ozone concentrations. We have updated the dry deposition scheme in Oslo CTM3 to a more process-based parameterization and assess the effect on modeled ozone.

We designed a simple computing library (OpenArray) to decouple ocean modelling and parallel computing. OpenArray provides 12 basic operators featuring user-friendly interfaces and an implicit parallelization ability. Based on OpenArray, we implement a practical ocean model with an enhanced readability and an excellent scalable performance. OpenArray may signal the beginning of a new frontier in future ocean modelling through ingesting basic operators and cutting-edge computing techniques.

In this research, we present a new version of the global terrestrial ecosystem model ORCHIDEE in which carbon and nitrogen cycles are coupled. We evaluate its skills at simulating primary production at 78 sites and at a global scale. Based on a set of additional simulations in which carbon and nitrogen cycles are coupled and uncoupled, we show that the functional responses of the model with carbon–nitrogen interactions better agree with our current understanding of photosynthesis.

To predict the response of the vegetation to climate change, we need global models that describe the relevant processes taking place in the vegetation. Recently, we have obtained more in-depth understanding of vegetation processes and the role of nutrients in the biogeochemical cycles. We have developed a new global vegetation model that includes carbon, water, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles. We show that the model is successful in evaluation against a wide range of observations.

During the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project, improvements to the parameterizations were applied to the High Resolution Rapid Refresh model and its nested version. The impacts of the new parameterizations on the forecast of 80 m wind speeds and power are assessed, using sodars and profiling lidars observations for comparison. Improvements are evaluated as a function of the model’s initialization time, forecast horizon, time of the day, season, site elevation, and meteorological phenomena.

The Canadian Earth System Model version 5 (CanESM5) is a global model developed to simulate historical climate change and variability, to make centennial-scale projections of future climate, and to produce initialized seasonal and decadal predictions. This paper describes the model components and quantifies the model performance. CanESM5 simulations contribute to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) and will be employed for climate science applications in Canada.

This paper is the first in a series documenting and assessing important key components of the Finite-volumE Sea ice-Ocean Model version 2.0 (FESOM2.0). We assess the hydrographic biases, large-scale circulation, numerical performance and scalability of FESOM2.0 compared with its predecessor, FESOM1.4. The main conclusion is that the results of FESOM2.0 compare well to FESOM1.4 in terms of model biases but with a remarkable performance speedup with a 3 times higher throughput.

WAVETRISK-1.0 is a new adaptive dynamical core for global climate modelling. It uses multiscale adaptive wavelet methods to adjust the grid resolution of the model at each time to guarantee error and make optimal use of computational resources. This technique has the potential to make climate simulations more accurate and allow much higher local resolutions. This "zoom" capability could also be used to focus on significant phenomena (such as hurricanes) or particular regions of the Earth.