Articles | Volume 15, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5461-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5461-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Model evaluation paper
| 
19 Jul 2022
Model evaluation paper |
| 19 Jul 2022
| 19 Jul 2022
Atmospheric river representation in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) version 1.0
Sol Kim
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
L. Ruby Leung
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Bin Guan
Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
John C. H. Chiang
Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
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Earth Syst. Dynam., 17, 1629–1647, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1629-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1629-2026, 2026
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In this study, we use historical simulations (1902-2014) from the Irrigation Model Intercomparison Project (IRRMIP) to provide the first multi-model quantification of irrigation-induced effective radiative forcing (ERF). We find that the global multi-model mean ERF is positive but small (~0.023 W m⁻²). This small global signal masks regional heterogeneity: South Asia and West Central Asia show higher positive ERF (~0.23 W m⁻²), whereas East Asia exhibits a negative signal (~ −0.03 W m⁻²).
Kyle S. Mattingly, Michelle Maclennan, Joseph Schnaubelt, Christine Shields, Rebecca Baiman, Alexander Y. Massa, Kyle Nardi, Serena R. Scholz, Rudradutt Thaker, Chen Zhang, Seung H. Baek, Tobias Braun, Victoire Buffet, James Butler, Bo Dong, Vincent Favier, Irina Gorodetskaya, Bin Guan, Marlen Kolbe, Melanie Lauer, Gabrielle Linscott, Juan M. Lora, Mengqian Lu, Weiming Ma, Sophia Macarewich, Gudrun Magnusdottir, Travis A. O'Brien, Sofie Tiedeck, Sara M. Vallejo-Bernal, Carolina Viceto, Jonathan D. Wille, Jing Yang, Zhenhai Zhang, and Xun Zou
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5197, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5197, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).
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Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow bands of water vapor that bring warm, moist air to Earth's polar regions. Our understanding of how ARs affect polar ice sheets and sea ice is sensitive to the AR detection method chosen. In this research, we find that some AR detection methods are better suited for marine areas, while others excel in the interior of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. These results will help constrain uncertainty in projections of polar environmental change linked to ARs.
Gautam Bisht, Lingcheng Li, Donghui Xu, Dalei Hao, Hoang Tran, and L. Ruby Leungy
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5918, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5918, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
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Computer models of land help us understand water supplies, floods, snow, heat, and plant growth, but local landscape differences can be missed. We adjusted two model settings to better represent groundwater and flooding in a one-kilometer model of the contiguous United States, then compared its results with observations. It captured broad patterns but had important errors. Combining results into larger areas lost 34–44% of local detail, showing why detailed land models need further improvement.
Pengfei Shi, L. Ruby Leung, Zhaoxia Pu, Samson Hagos, and Karthik Balaguru
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 8003–8023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-8003-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-8003-2026, 2026
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Yuanqi Hong, Guta Wakbulcho Abeshu, Hong-Yi Li, Dingbao Wang, Mengqi Zhao, Thomas Wild, Günter Blöschl, and L. Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 4293–4303, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4293-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4293-2026, 2026
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Rain runs off in two main ways: saturation excess when soil is full, and infiltration excess when rain exceeds infiltration. They often occur simultaneously in a watershed, but most models treat them separately. We introduce a new theory that captures both processes within a single framework, tracking their shift over space and time. Tested over 181 U.S. watersheds, the theory well predicts streamflow in most watersheds and improves understanding of runoff under diverse climates.
Fang Li, David M. Lawrence, Brendan M. Rogers, Chantelle Burton, Huilin Huang, Yiquan Jiang, Johannes W. Kaiser, Matthew Kasoar, Hanna Lee, Ruby Leung, Lars Nieradzik, Aihui Wang, Daniel S. Ward, Ligeer Ce, Yangchun Li, Zhongda Lin, Apostolos Voulgarakis, and Yongkang Xue
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 3989–4007, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-3989-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-3989-2026, 2026
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Extreme fire events are increasing, and fires are projected to rise across most regions, posing growing risks to ecosystems and society. As a key Earth system process, fire is now modeled in most Earth System Models (ESMs). FireMIP (Fire Modeling Intercomparison Project) within CMIP7 will evaluate fire simulations in state‑of‑the‑art ESMs, project future fire changes, and provide quantitative, process‑based understanding of fire's role in the Earth system.
Koichi Sakaguchi, Seth A. McGinnis, L. Ruby Leung, Melissa S. Bukovsky, Rachel R. McCrary, Ziming Chen, Chuan-Chieh Chang, and Yanjie Li
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 3643–3688, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-3643-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-3643-2026, 2026
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We evaluated Rossby waves in dynamical downscaling simulations over North America, and their connections to surface air temperature variability and heatwaves. Simulated Rossby wave propagation is distorted by flow discontinuities at lateral boundaries and by biased mean wind patterns, thereby breaking the region-specific connections between Rossby waves and surface temperature. Adjusting simulated large-scale winds to match the forcing data can reduce these biases.
Tian Zhou, Yun Qian, and L. Ruby Leung
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2237, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2237, 2026
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AI can now write scientific analysis code that looks correct but quietly produces wrong results. We tested whether asking the assistant to assemble analyses from a library of validated building blocks, rather than write code from scratch, makes it more reliable. Across six language models and seven Earth science tasks, free code writing succeeded only about five percent of the time while the constrained approach exceeded eighty percent, suggesting trust needs guardrails.
Shixuan Zhang, L. Ruby Leung, Bryce E. Harrop, Aniruddha Bora, George Karniadakis, Khemraj Shukla, and Kai Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 1937–1964, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-1937-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-1937-2026, 2026
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We developed a new method to guide the simulated atmosphere in an Earth system model so it better reflects real-world weather. By adjusting temperature and humidity, it reduces unwanted side effects and improves the realism of rainfall, energy flows, land–surface conditions, and extreme storms such as cyclones and atmospheric rivers. This makes the model more useful for testing its performance, understanding high-impact weather events, and creating reliable training data for machine learning.
Naser Mahfouz, Hassan Beydoun, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Noel Keen, Adam C. Varble, Luca Bertagna, Peter Bogenschutz, Andrew Bradley, Matthew W. Christensen, T. Conrad Clevenger, Aaron Donahue, Jerome Fast, James Foucar, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Oksana Guba, Walter Hannah, Benjamin Hillman, Robert Jacob, Wuyin Lin, Po-Lun Ma, Yun Qian, Balwinder Singh, Christopher Terai, Hailong Wang, Mingxuan Wu, Kai Zhang, Andrew Gettelman, Mark Taylor, L. Ruby Leung, Peter Caldwell, and Susannah Burrows
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 15105–15120, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-15105-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-15105-2025, 2025
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Our study assesses the aerosol effective radiative forcing in a global cloud-resolving atmosphere model at ultra-high resolution. We demonstrate that global aerosol forcing signal can be robustly reproduced across resolutions when aerosol activation processes are carefully parameterized. Further, we argue that simplified prescribed aerosol schemes will open the door for further process/mechanism studies under controlled conditions.
Dongyu Feng, Zeli Tan, Darren Engwirda, Jonathan D. Wolfe, Donghui Xu, Chang Liao, Gautam Bisht, James J. Benedict, Tian Zhou, Mithun Deb, Hong-Yi Li, and L. Ruby Leung
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 3619–3639, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-3619-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-3619-2025, 2025
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Our study explores how riverine and coastal flooding during hurricanes is influenced by the interaction of atmosphere, land, river, and ocean conditions. Using an advanced Earth system model, we simulate Hurricane Irene to evaluate how meteorological and hydrological uncertainties affect flood modeling. Our findings reveal the importance of a multi-component modeling system, how hydrological conditions play critical roles in flood modeling, and greater flood risks if multiple factors are present.
Zeli Tan, Donghui Xu, Sourav Taraphdar, Jiangqin Ma, Gautam Bisht, and L. Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 3833–3852, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3833-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3833-2025, 2025
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Flow depth and velocity determine various river functions, but their high-resolution simulations are expensive. Here, we developed a downscaling approach that can provide fast and accurate estimation of high-resolution river hydrodynamics. The 84-fold acceleration achieved by the method makes reliable flood risk analysis that needs hundreds or thousands of model runs feasible. More importantly, it provides an opportunity to couple large-scale hydrodynamics with local processes in river models.
Jianfeng Li, Andrew Geiss, Zhe Feng, L. Ruby Leung, Yun Qian, and Wenjun Cui
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 3721–3740, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3721-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3721-2025, 2025
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We developed a high-resolution (4 km and hourly) observational derecho dataset over the United States east of the Rocky Mountains from 2004 to 2021 by using a mesoscale convective system dataset, bow echoes detected by a machine learning method, hourly gust speeds, and physically based identification criteria.
Chang Liao, L. Ruby Leung, Yilin Fang, Teklu Tesfa, and Robinson Negron-Juarez
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 4601–4624, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-4601-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-4601-2025, 2025
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Understanding horizontal groundwater flow is important for understanding how water moves through the ground. Current climate models often simplify this process because they do not have information about the land surface that is detailed enough. Our study developed a new model that divides the land surface into hillslopes to better represent how groundwater flows. This model can help improve predictions of water availability and how it affects ecosystems.
Lingbo Li, Hong-Yi Li, Guta Abeshu, Jinyun Tang, L. Ruby Leung, Chang Liao, Zeli Tan, Hanqin Tian, Peter Thornton, and Xiaojuan Yang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2713–2733, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2713-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2713-2025, 2025
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We have developed new maps that reveal how organic carbon from soil leaches into headwater streams over the contiguous United States. We use advanced artificial intelligence techniques and a massive amount of data, including observations at over 2500 gauges and a wealth of climate and environmental information. The maps are a critical step in understanding and predicting how carbon moves through our environment, hence making them a useful tool for tackling climate challenges.
Pengfei Shi, L. Ruby Leung, and Bin Wang
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 2443–2460, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-2443-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-2443-2025, 2025
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Improving climate predictions has significant socio-economic impacts. In this study, we develop and apply a new weakly coupled ocean data assimilation (WCODA) system to a coupled climate model. The WCODA system improves simulations of ocean temperature and salinity across many global regions. This system is meant to advance our understanding of the ocean's role in climate predictability.
Guta Wakbulcho Abeshu, Hong-Yi Li, Mingjie Shi, and L. Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 1847–1864, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1847-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1847-2025, 2025
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This study examined how water availability, climate dryness, and plant productivity interact at the catchment scale. Using various indices and statistical methods, we found a 0–2-month lag in these interactions. Strong correlations during peak-productivity months were observed, with a notable hysteresis effect in vegetation response to changes in water availability and climate dryness. The findings help better understand catchment responses to climate variability.
Malcolm J. Roberts, Kevin A. Reed, Qing Bao, Joseph J. Barsugli, Suzana J. Camargo, Louis-Philippe Caron, Ping Chang, Cheng-Ta Chen, Hannah M. Christensen, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Ivy Frenger, Neven S. Fučkar, Shabeh ul Hasson, Helene T. Hewitt, Huanping Huang, Daehyun Kim, Chihiro Kodama, Michael Lai, Lai-Yung Ruby Leung, Ryo Mizuta, Paulo Nobre, Pablo Ortega, Dominique Paquin, Christopher D. Roberts, Enrico Scoccimarro, Jon Seddon, Anne Marie Treguier, Chia-Ying Tu, Paul A. Ullrich, Pier Luigi Vidale, Michael F. Wehner, Colin M. Zarzycki, Bosong Zhang, Wei Zhang, and Ming Zhao
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1307–1332, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1307-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1307-2025, 2025
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HighResMIP2 is a model intercomparison project focusing on high-resolution global climate models, that is, those with grid spacings of 25 km or less in the atmosphere and ocean, using simulations of decades to a century in length. We are proposing an update of our simulation protocol to make the models more applicable to key questions for climate variability and hazard in present-day and future projections and to build links with other communities to provide more robust climate information.
Mukesh Rai, Kazuyuki Miyazaki, Vivienne Payne, Bin Guan, and Duane Waliser
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-399, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-399, 2025
Preprint archived
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This study introduces a novel method for quantifying extreme events of trace gas air pollutants by leveraging a tropospheric chemical reanalysis data set. The analysis revealed that while extreme events are infrequent, they contribute substantially (60 %) to the total transport of pollutants. This finding underscores the critical role of long-range transport events in determining global and regional air quality.
Yilin Fang, Hoang Viet Tran, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 19–32, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-19-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-19-2025, 2025
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Hurricanes may worsen water quality in the lower Mississippi River basin (LMRB) by increasing nutrient runoff. We found that runoff parameterizations greatly affect nitrate–nitrogen runoff simulated using an Earth system land model. Our simulations predicted increased nitrogen runoff in the LMRB during Hurricane Ida in 2021, albeit less pronounced than the observations, indicating areas for model improvement to better understand and manage nutrient runoff loss during hurricanes in the region.
Fang Li, Xiang Song, Sandy P. Harrison, Jennifer R. Marlon, Zhongda Lin, L. Ruby Leung, Jörg Schwinger, Virginie Marécal, Shiyu Wang, Daniel S. Ward, Xiao Dong, Hanna Lee, Lars Nieradzik, Sam S. Rabin, and Roland Séférian
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8751–8771, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8751-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8751-2024, 2024
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This study provides the first comprehensive assessment of historical fire simulations from 19 Earth system models in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Most models reproduce global totals, spatial patterns, seasonality, and regional historical changes well but fail to simulate the recent decline in global burned area and underestimate the fire response to climate variability. CMIP6 simulations address three critical issues of phase-5 models.
Johannes Mülmenstädt, Andrew S. Ackerman, Ann M. Fridlind, Meng Huang, Po-Lun Ma, Naser Mahfouz, Susanne E. Bauer, Susannah M. Burrows, Matthew W. Christensen, Sudhakar Dipu, Andrew Gettelman, L. Ruby Leung, Florian Tornow, Johannes Quaas, Adam C. Varble, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, and Youtong Zheng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13633–13652, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13633-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13633-2024, 2024
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Stratocumulus clouds play a large role in Earth's climate by reflecting incoming solar energy back to space. Turbulence at stratocumulus cloud top mixes in dry, warm air, which can lead to cloud dissipation. This process is challenging for coarse-resolution global models to represent. We show that global models nevertheless agree well with our process understanding. Global models also think the process is less important for the climate than other lines of evidence have led us to conclude.
Fan Mei, Jennifer M. Comstock, Mikhail S. Pekour, Jerome D. Fast, Krista L. Gaustad, Beat Schmid, Shuaiqi Tang, Damao Zhang, John E. Shilling, Jason M. Tomlinson, Adam C. Varble, Jian Wang, L. Ruby Leung, Lawrence Kleinman, Scot Martin, Sebastien C. Biraud, Brian D. Ermold, and Kenneth W. Burk
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 5429–5448, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-5429-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-5429-2024, 2024
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Our study explores a comprehensive dataset from airborne field studies (2013–2018) conducted using the US Department of Energy's Gulfstream 1 (G-1). The 236 flights span diverse regions, including the Arctic, US Southern Great Plains, US West Coast, eastern North Atlantic, Amazon Basin in Brazil, and Sierras de Córdoba range in Argentina. This dataset provides unique insights into atmospheric dynamics, aerosols, and clouds and makes data available in a more accessible format.
Johannes Mülmenstädt, Edward Gryspeerdt, Sudhakar Dipu, Johannes Quaas, Andrew S. Ackerman, Ann M. Fridlind, Florian Tornow, Susanne E. Bauer, Andrew Gettelman, Yi Ming, Youtong Zheng, Po-Lun Ma, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, Matthew W. Christensen, Adam C. Varble, L. Ruby Leung, Xiaohong Liu, David Neubauer, Daniel G. Partridge, Philip Stier, and Toshihiko Takemura
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7331–7345, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7331-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7331-2024, 2024
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Human activities release copious amounts of small particles called aerosols into the atmosphere. These particles change how much sunlight clouds reflect to space, an important human perturbation of the climate, whose magnitude is highly uncertain. We found that the latest climate models show a negative correlation but a positive causal relationship between aerosols and cloud water. This means we need to be very careful when we interpret observational studies that can only see correlation.
Tapio Schneider, L. Ruby Leung, and Robert C. J. Wills
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7041–7062, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7041-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7041-2024, 2024
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Climate models are crucial for predicting climate change in detail. This paper proposes a balanced approach to improving their accuracy by combining traditional process-based methods with modern artificial intelligence (AI) techniques while maximizing the resolution to allow for ensemble simulations. The authors propose using AI to learn from both observational and simulated data while incorporating existing physical knowledge to reduce data demands and improve climate prediction reliability.
Lingcheng Li, Gautam Bisht, Dalei Hao, and L. Ruby Leung
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 2007–2032, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2007-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2007-2024, 2024
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This study fills a gap to meet the emerging needs of kilometer-scale Earth system modeling by developing global 1 km land surface parameters for land use, vegetation, soil, and topography. Our demonstration simulations highlight the substantial impacts of these parameters on spatial variability and information loss in water and energy simulations. Using advanced explainable machine learning methods, we identified influential factors driving spatial variability and information loss.
Bryce E. Harrop, Jian Lu, L. Ruby Leung, William K. M. Lau, Kyu-Myong Kim, Brian Medeiros, Brian J. Soden, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Bosong Zhang, and Balwinder Singh
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3111–3135, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3111-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3111-2024, 2024
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Seven new experimental setups designed to interfere with cloud radiative heating have been added to the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). These experiments include both those that test the mean impact of cloud radiative heating and those examining its covariance with circulations. This paper documents the code changes and steps needed to run these experiments. Results corroborate prior findings for how cloud radiative heating impacts circulations and rainfall patterns.
Pengfei Shi, L. Ruby Leung, Bin Wang, Kai Zhang, Samson M. Hagos, and Shixuan Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3025–3040, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3025-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3025-2024, 2024
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Improving climate predictions have profound socio-economic impacts. This study introduces a new weakly coupled land data assimilation (WCLDA) system for a coupled climate model. We demonstrate improved simulation of soil moisture and temperature in many global regions and throughout the soil layers. Furthermore, significant improvements are also found in reproducing the time evolution of the 2012 US Midwest drought. The WCLDA system provides the groundwork for future predictability studies.
Yawen Liu, Yun Qian, Philip J. Rasch, Kai Zhang, Lai-yung Ruby Leung, Yuhang Wang, Minghuai Wang, Hailong Wang, Xin Huang, and Xiu-Qun Yang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3115–3128, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3115-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3115-2024, 2024
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Fire management has long been a challenge. Here we report that spring-peak fire activity over southern Mexico and Central America (SMCA) has a distinct quasi-biennial signal by measuring multiple fire metrics. This signal is initially driven by quasi-biennial variability in precipitation and is further amplified by positive feedback of fire–precipitation interaction at short timescales. This work highlights the importance of fire–climate interactions in shaping fires on an interannual scale.
Donghui Xu, Gautam Bisht, Zeli Tan, Chang Liao, Tian Zhou, Hong-Yi Li, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1197–1215, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1197-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1197-2024, 2024
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We aim to disentangle the hydrological and hydraulic controls on streamflow variability in a fully coupled earth system model. We found that calibrating only one process (i.e., traditional calibration procedure) will result in unrealistic parameter values and poor performance of the water cycle, while the simulated streamflow is improved. To address this issue, we further proposed a two-step calibration procedure to reconcile the impacts from hydrological and hydraulic processes on streamflow.
Calvin Howes, Pablo E. Saide, Hugh Coe, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Jim M. Haywood, Steven G. Howell, Siddhant Gupta, Janek Uin, Mary Kacarab, Chongai Kuang, L. Ruby Leung, Athanasios Nenes, Greg M. McFarquhar, James Podolske, Jens Redemann, Arthur J. Sedlacek, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Jenny P. S. Wong, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, Yang Zhang, Jianhao Zhang, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13911–13940, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13911-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13911-2023, 2023
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To better understand smoke properties and its interactions with clouds, we compare the WRF-CAM5 model with observations from ORACLES, CLARIFY, and LASIC field campaigns in the southeastern Atlantic in August 2017. The model transports and mixes smoke well but does not fully capture some important processes. These include smoke chemical and physical aging over 4–12 days, smoke removal by rain, sulfate particle formation, aerosol activation into cloud droplets, and boundary layer turbulence.
Dongyu Feng, Zeli Tan, Donghui Xu, and L. Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 3911–3934, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-3911-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-3911-2023, 2023
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This study assesses the flood risks concurrently induced by river flooding and coastal storm surge along the coast of the contiguous United States using statistical and numerical models. We reveal a few hotspots of such risks, the critical spatial variabilities within a river basin and over the whole US coast, and the uncertainties of the risk assessment. We highlight the importance of weighing different risk measures to avoid underestimating or exaggerating the compound flood impacts.
Pierre Maffre, John C. H. Chiang, and Nicholas L. Swanson-Hysell
Clim. Past, 19, 1461–1479, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1461-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1461-2023, 2023
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CO2 consumption by chemical alteration of continental silicate rocks regulates atmospheric CO2 and Earth's mean climate. The efficiency of this regulation is affected by the amount of continental precipitation and may have been reduced 3 to 4 million years ago because of different patterns of sea surface temperature. This process could have contributed to the warmer climate of that time.
Lingcheng Li, Yilin Fang, Zhonghua Zheng, Mingjie Shi, Marcos Longo, Charles D. Koven, Jennifer A. Holm, Rosie A. Fisher, Nate G. McDowell, Jeffrey Chambers, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 4017–4040, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4017-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4017-2023, 2023
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Accurately modeling plant coexistence in vegetation demographic models like ELM-FATES is challenging. This study proposes a repeatable method that uses machine-learning-based surrogate models to optimize plant trait parameters in ELM-FATES. Our approach significantly improves plant coexistence modeling, thus reducing errors. It has important implications for modeling ecosystem dynamics in response to climate change.
Qi Tang, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Luke P. Van Roekel, Mark A. Taylor, Wuyin Lin, Benjamin R. Hillman, Paul A. Ullrich, Andrew M. Bradley, Oksana Guba, Jonathan D. Wolfe, Tian Zhou, Kai Zhang, Xue Zheng, Yunyan Zhang, Meng Zhang, Mingxuan Wu, Hailong Wang, Cheng Tao, Balwinder Singh, Alan M. Rhoades, Yi Qin, Hong-Yi Li, Yan Feng, Yuying Zhang, Chengzhu Zhang, Charles S. Zender, Shaocheng Xie, Erika L. Roesler, Andrew F. Roberts, Azamat Mametjanov, Mathew E. Maltrud, Noel D. Keen, Robert L. Jacob, Christiane Jablonowski, Owen K. Hughes, Ryan M. Forsyth, Alan V. Di Vittorio, Peter M. Caldwell, Gautam Bisht, Renata B. McCoy, L. Ruby Leung, and David C. Bader
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3953–3995, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3953-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3953-2023, 2023
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High-resolution simulations are superior to low-resolution ones in capturing regional climate changes and climate extremes. However, uniformly reducing the grid size of a global Earth system model is too computationally expensive. We provide an overview of the fully coupled regionally refined model (RRM) of E3SMv2 and document a first-of-its-kind set of climate production simulations using RRM at an economic cost. The key to this success is our innovative hybrid time step method.
Koichi Sakaguchi, L. Ruby Leung, Colin M. Zarzycki, Jihyeon Jang, Seth McGinnis, Bryce E. Harrop, William C. Skamarock, Andrew Gettelman, Chun Zhao, William J. Gutowski, Stephen Leak, and Linda Mearns
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3029–3081, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3029-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3029-2023, 2023
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We document details of the regional climate downscaling dataset produced by a global variable-resolution model. The experiment is unique in that it follows a standard protocol designed for coordinated experiments of regional models. We found negligible influence of post-processing on statistical analysis, importance of simulation quality outside of the target region, and computational challenges that our model code faced due to rapidly changing super computer systems.
Zhe Feng, Joseph Hardin, Hannah C. Barnes, Jianfeng Li, L. Ruby Leung, Adam Varble, and Zhixiao Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 2753–2776, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2753-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2753-2023, 2023
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PyFLEXTRKR is a flexible atmospheric feature tracking framework with specific capabilities to track convective clouds from a variety of observations and model simulations. The package has a collection of multi-object identification algorithms and has been optimized for large datasets. This paper describes the algorithms and demonstrates applications for tracking deep convective cells and mesoscale convective systems from observations and model simulations at a wide range of scales.
Zeyu Xue, Paul Ullrich, and Lai-Yung Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 1909–1927, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1909-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1909-2023, 2023
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We examine the sensitivity and robustness of conclusions drawn from the PGW method over the NEUS by conducting multiple PGW experiments and varying the perturbation spatial scales and choice of perturbed meteorological variables to provide a guideline for this increasingly popular regional modeling method. Overall, we recommend PGW experiments be performed with perturbations to temperature or the combination of temperature and wind at the gridpoint scale, depending on the research question.
Dalei Hao, Gautam Bisht, Karl Rittger, Timbo Stillinger, Edward Bair, Yu Gu, and L. Ruby Leung
The Cryosphere, 17, 673–697, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-673-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-673-2023, 2023
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We comprehensively evaluated the snow simulations in E3SM land model over the western United States in terms of spatial patterns, temporal correlations, interannual variabilities, elevation gradients, and change with forest cover of snow properties and snow phenology. Our study underscores the need for diagnosing model biases and improving the model representations of snow properties and snow phenology in mountainous areas for more credible simulation and future projection of mountain snowpack.
Chandan Sarangi, Yun Qian, L. Ruby Leung, Yang Zhang, Yufei Zou, and Yuhang Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1769–1783, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1769-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1769-2023, 2023
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We show that for air quality, the densely populated eastern US may see even larger impacts of wildfires due to long-distance smoke transport and associated positive climatic impacts, partially compensating the improvements from regulations on anthropogenic emissions. This study highlights the tension between natural and anthropogenic contributions and the non-local nature of air pollution that complicate regulatory strategies for improving future regional air quality for human health.
Dalei Hao, Gautam Bisht, Karl Rittger, Edward Bair, Cenlin He, Huilin Huang, Cheng Dang, Timbo Stillinger, Yu Gu, Hailong Wang, Yun Qian, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 75–94, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-75-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-75-2023, 2023
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Snow with the highest albedo of land surface plays a vital role in Earth’s surface energy budget and water cycle. This study accounts for the impacts of snow grain shape and mixing state of light-absorbing particles with snow on snow albedo in the E3SM land model. The findings advance our understanding of the role of snow grain shape and mixing state of LAP–snow in land surface processes and offer guidance for improving snow simulations and radiative forcing estimates in Earth system models.
Dongyu Feng, Zeli Tan, Darren Engwirda, Chang Liao, Donghui Xu, Gautam Bisht, Tian Zhou, Hong-Yi Li, and L. Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5473–5491, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5473-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5473-2022, 2022
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Sea level rise, storm surge and river discharge can cause coastal backwater effects in downstream sections of rivers, creating critical flood risks. This study simulates the backwater effects using a large-scale river model on a coastal-refined computational mesh. By decomposing the backwater drivers, we revealed their relative importance and long-term variations. Our analysis highlights the increasing strength of backwater effects due to sea level rise and more frequent storm surge.
Yilin Fang, L. Ruby Leung, Charles D. Koven, Gautam Bisht, Matteo Detto, Yanyan Cheng, Nate McDowell, Helene Muller-Landau, S. Joseph Wright, and Jeffrey Q. Chambers
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 7879–7901, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-7879-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-7879-2022, 2022
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We develop a model that integrates an Earth system model with a three-dimensional hydrology model to explicitly resolve hillslope topography and water flow underneath the land surface to understand how local-scale hydrologic processes modulate vegetation along water availability gradients. Our coupled model can be used to improve the understanding of the diverse impact of local heterogeneity and water flux on nutrient availability and plant communities.
Yilin Fang, L. Ruby Leung, Ryan Knox, Charlie Koven, and Ben Bond-Lamberty
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6385–6398, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6385-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6385-2022, 2022
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Accounting for water movement in the soil and water transport within the plant is important for plant growth in Earth system modeling. We implemented different numerical approaches for a plant hydrodynamic model and compared their impacts on the simulated aboveground biomass (AGB) at single points and globally. We found care should be taken when discretizing the number of soil layers for numerical simulations as it can significantly affect AGB if accuracy and computational costs are of concern.
Meng Huang, Po-Lun Ma, Nathaniel W. Chaney, Dalei Hao, Gautam Bisht, Megan D. Fowler, Vincent E. Larson, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6371–6384, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6371-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6371-2022, 2022
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The land surface in one grid cell may be diverse in character. This study uses an explicit way to account for that subgrid diversity in a state-of-the-art Earth system model (ESM) and explores its implications for the overlying atmosphere. We find that the shallow clouds are increased significantly with the land surface diversity. Our work highlights the importance of accurately representing the land surface and its interaction with the atmosphere in next-generation ESMs.
Lingcheng Li, Gautam Bisht, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5489–5510, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5489-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5489-2022, 2022
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Land surface heterogeneity plays a critical role in the terrestrial water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles. Our study systematically quantified the effects of four dominant heterogeneity sources on water and energy partitioning via Sobol' indices. We found that atmospheric forcing and land use land cover are the most dominant heterogeneity sources in determining spatial variability of water and energy partitioning. Our findings can help prioritize the future development of land surface models.
Kai Zhang, Wentao Zhang, Hui Wan, Philip J. Rasch, Steven J. Ghan, Richard C. Easter, Xiangjun Shi, Yong Wang, Hailong Wang, Po-Lun Ma, Shixuan Zhang, Jian Sun, Susannah M. Burrows, Manish Shrivastava, Balwinder Singh, Yun Qian, Xiaohong Liu, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Qi Tang, Xue Zheng, Shaocheng Xie, Wuyin Lin, Yan Feng, Minghuai Wang, Jin-Ho Yoon, and L. Ruby Leung
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9129–9160, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9129-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9129-2022, 2022
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Here we analyze the effective aerosol forcing simulated by E3SM version 1 using both century-long free-running and short nudged simulations. The aerosol forcing in E3SMv1 is relatively large compared to other models, mainly due to the large indirect aerosol effect. Aerosol-induced changes in liquid and ice cloud properties in E3SMv1 have a strong correlation. The aerosol forcing estimates in E3SMv1 are sensitive to the parameterization changes in both liquid and ice cloud processes.
Donghui Xu, Gautam Bisht, Khachik Sargsyan, Chang Liao, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5021–5043, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5021-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5021-2022, 2022
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The runoff outputs in Earth system model simulations involve high uncertainty, which needs to be constrained by parameter calibration. In this work, we used a surrogate-assisted Bayesian framework to efficiently calibrate the runoff-generation processes in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model v1 at a global scale. The model performance was improved compared to the default parameter after calibration, and the associated parametric uncertainty was significantly constrained.
Sudip Chakraborty, Bin Guan, Duane E. Waliser, and Arlindo M. da Silva
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8175–8195, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8175-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8175-2022, 2022
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This study explores extreme aerosol transport events by aerosol atmospheric rivers (AARs) and shows the characteristics of individual AARs such as length, width, length-to-width ratio, transport strength, and dominant transport direction, the seasonal variations, the relationship to the spatial distribution of surface emissions, the vertical profiles of wind, aerosol mixing ratio, and aerosol mass fluxes, and the major planetary-scale aerosol transport pathways.
Yun Lin, Jiwen Fan, Pengfei Li, Lai-yung Ruby Leung, Paul J. DeMott, Lexie Goldberger, Jennifer Comstock, Ying Liu, Jong-Hoon Jeong, and Jason Tomlinson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 6749–6771, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-6749-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-6749-2022, 2022
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How sea spray aerosols may affect cloud and precipitation over the region by acting as ice-nucleating particles (INPs) is unknown. We explored the effects of INPs from marine aerosols on orographic cloud and precipitation for an atmospheric river event observed during the 2015 ACAPEX field campaign. The marine INPs enhance the formation of ice and snow, leading to less shallow warm clouds but more mixed-phase and deep clouds. This work suggests models need to consider the impacts of marine INPs.
Pinya Wang, Yang Yang, Huimin Li, Lei Chen, Ruijun Dang, Daokai Xue, Baojie Li, Jianping Tang, L. Ruby Leung, and Hong Liao
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 4705–4719, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-4705-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-4705-2022, 2022
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China is now suffering from both severe ozone (O3) pollution and heat events. We highlight that North China Plain is the hot spot of the co-occurrences of extremes in O3 and high temperatures in China. Such coupled extremes exhibit an increasing trend during 2014–2019 and will continue to increase until the middle of this century. And the coupled extremes impose more severe health impacts to human than O3 pollution occurring alone because of elevated O3 levels and temperatures.
Po-Lun Ma, Bryce E. Harrop, Vincent E. Larson, Richard B. Neale, Andrew Gettelman, Hugh Morrison, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, Stephen A. Klein, Mark D. Zelinka, Yuying Zhang, Yun Qian, Jin-Ho Yoon, Christopher R. Jones, Meng Huang, Sheng-Lun Tai, Balwinder Singh, Peter A. Bogenschutz, Xue Zheng, Wuyin Lin, Johannes Quaas, Hélène Chepfer, Michael A. Brunke, Xubin Zeng, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Samson Hagos, Zhibo Zhang, Hua Song, Xiaohong Liu, Michael S. Pritchard, Hui Wan, Jingyu Wang, Qi Tang, Peter M. Caldwell, Jiwen Fan, Larry K. Berg, Jerome D. Fast, Mark A. Taylor, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Shaocheng Xie, Philip J. Rasch, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2881–2916, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2881-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2881-2022, 2022
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An alternative set of parameters for E3SM Atmospheric Model version 1 has been developed based on a tuning strategy that focuses on clouds. When clouds in every regime are improved, other aspects of the model are also improved, even though they are not the direct targets for calibration. The recalibrated model shows a lower sensitivity to anthropogenic aerosols and surface warming, suggesting potential improvements to the simulated climate in the past and future.
Sally S.-C. Wang, Yun Qian, L. Ruby Leung, and Yang Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 3445–3468, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3445-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3445-2022, 2022
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This study develops an interpretable machine learning (ML) model predicting monthly PM2.5 fire emission over the contiguous US at 0.25° resolution and compares the prediction skills of the ML and process-based models. The comparison facilitates attributions of model biases and better understanding of the strengths and uncertainties in the two types of models at regional scales, for informing future model development and their applications in fire emission projection.
Guta Wakbulcho Abeshu, Hong-Yi Li, Zhenduo Zhu, Zeli Tan, and L. Ruby Leung
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 929–942, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-929-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-929-2022, 2022
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Existing riverbed sediment particle size data are sparsely available at individual sites. We develop a continuous map of median riverbed sediment particle size over the contiguous US corresponding to millions of river segments based on the existing observations and machine learning methods. This map is useful for research in large-scale river sediment using model- and data-driven approaches, teaching environmental and earth system sciences, planning and managing floodplain zones, etc.
Hong-Yi Li, Zeli Tan, Hongbo Ma, Zhenduo Zhu, Guta Wakbulcho Abeshu, Senlin Zhu, Sagy Cohen, Tian Zhou, Donghui Xu, and L. Ruby Leung
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 665–688, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-665-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-665-2022, 2022
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We introduce a new multi-process river sediment module for Earth system models. Application and validation over the contiguous US indicate a satisfactory model performance over large river systems, including those heavily regulated by reservoirs. This new sediment module enables future modeling of the transportation and transformation of carbon and nutrients carried by the fine sediment along the river–ocean continuum to close the global carbon and nutrient cycles.
Claudia Tebaldi, Kalyn Dorheim, Michael Wehner, and Ruby Leung
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1427–1501, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1427-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1427-2021, 2021
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We address the question of how large an initial condition ensemble of climate model simulations should be if we are concerned with accurately projecting future changes in temperature and precipitation extremes. We find that for most cases (and both models considered), an ensemble of 20–25 members is sufficient for many extreme metrics, spatial scales and time horizons. This may leave computational resources to tackle other uncertainties in climate model simulations with our ensembles.
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Short summary
The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project is a state-of-the-science Earth system model developed by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Understanding how the water cycle behaves in this model is of particular importance to the DOE’s mission. Atmospheric rivers (ARs) – which are crucial to the global water cycle – move vast amounts of water vapor through the sky and produce rain and snow. We find that this model reliably represents atmospheric rivers around the world.
The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project is a state-of-the-science Earth system...
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