The DOE E3SM Model Version 2: Overview of the physical model and initial model evaluation

This work documents version two of the Department of Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). E3SMv2 is a significant evolution from its predecessor E3SMv1, resulting in a model that is nearly twice as fast and with a simulated climate that is improved in many metrics. We describe the physical climate model in its lower horizontal resolution configuration consisting of 110 km atmosphere, 165 km land, 0.5 degrees river routing model, and an ocean and sea ice with mesh spacing varying between 60 km in the mid-latitudes and 30 km at the equator and poles. The model performance is evaluated with Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Characterization of Klima simulations augmented with historical simulations as well as simulations to evaluate impacts of different forcing agents. The simulated climate has many realistic features of the climate system, with notable improvements in clouds and precipitation compared to E3SMv1. E3SMv1 suffered from an excessively high equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of 5.3 K. In E3SMv2, ECS is reduced to 4.0 K which is now within the plausible range based on a recent World Climate Research Program assessment. However, a number of important biases remain including a weak Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, deficiencies in the characteristics and spectral distribution of tropical atmospheric variability, and a significant underestimation of the observed warming in the second half of the historical period. An analysis of single-forcing simulations indicates that correcting the historical temperature bias would require a substantial reduction in the magnitude of the aerosol-related forcing.

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Author Golaz, Jean‐Christophe
Van Roekel, Luke P.
Zheng, Xue
Roberts, Andrew F.
Wolfe, Jonathan D.
Lin, Wuyin
Bradley, Andrew M.
Tang, Qi
Maltrud, Mathew E.
Forsyth, Ryan M.
Zhang, Chengzhu
Zhou, Tian
Zhang, Kai
Zender, Charles S.
Wu, Mingxuan
Wang, Hailong
Turner, Adrian K.
Singh, Balwinder
Richter, Jadwiga H.
Qin, Yi
Petersen, Mark R.
Mametjanov, Azamat
Ma, Po‐Lun
Larson, Vincent E.
Krishna, Jayesh
Keen, Noel D.
Jeffery, Nicole
Hunke, Elizabeth C.
Hannah, Walter M.
Guba, Oksana
Griffin, Brian M.
Feng, Yan
Engwirda, Darren
Di Vittorio, Alan V.
Dang, Cheng
Conlon, LeAnn M.
Chen, Chih‐Chieh‐Jack
Brunke, Michael A.
Bisht, Gautam
Benedict, James J.
Asay‐Davis, Xylar S.
Zhang, Yuying
Zhang, Meng
Zeng, Xubin
Xie, Shaocheng
Wolfram, Phillip J.
Vo, Tom
Veneziani, Milena
Tesfa, Teklu K.
Sreepathi, Sarat
Salinger, Andrew G.
Reeves Eyre, J. E. Jack
Prather, Michael J.
Mahajan, Salil
Li, Qing
Jones, Philip W.
Jacob, Robert L.
Huebler, Gunther W.
Huang, Xianglei
Hillman, Benjamin R.
Harrop, Bryce E.
Foucar, James G.
Fang, Yilin
Comeau, Darin S.
Caldwell, Peter M.
Bartoletti, Tony
Balaguru, Karthik
Taylor, Mark A.
McCoy, Renata B.
Leung, L. Ruby
Bader, David C.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2022-12-08T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:20:05.599028
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26079
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Golaz, Jean‐Christophe, Van Roekel, Luke P., Zheng, Xue, Roberts, Andrew F., Wolfe, Jonathan D., Lin, Wuyin, Bradley, Andrew M., Tang, Qi, Maltrud, Mathew E., Forsyth, Ryan M., Zhang, Chengzhu, Zhou, Tian, Zhang, Kai, Zender, Charles S., Wu, Mingxuan, Wang, Hailong, Turner, Adrian K., Singh, Balwinder, Richter, Jadwiga H., Qin, Yi, Petersen, Mark R., Mametjanov, Azamat, Ma, Po‐Lun, Larson, Vincent E., Krishna, Jayesh, Keen, Noel D., Jeffery, Nicole, Hunke, Elizabeth C., Hannah, Walter M., Guba, Oksana, Griffin, Brian M., Feng, Yan, Engwirda, Darren, Di Vittorio, Alan V., Dang, Cheng, Conlon, LeAnn M., Chen, Chih‐Chieh‐Jack, Brunke, Michael A., Bisht, Gautam, Benedict, James J., Asay‐Davis, Xylar S., Zhang, Yuying, Zhang, Meng, Zeng, Xubin, Xie, Shaocheng, Wolfram, Phillip J., Vo, Tom, Veneziani, Milena, Tesfa, Teklu K., Sreepathi, Sarat, Salinger, Andrew G., Reeves Eyre, J. E. Jack, Prather, Michael J., Mahajan, Salil, Li, Qing, Jones, Philip W., Jacob, Robert L., Huebler, Gunther W., Huang, Xianglei, Hillman, Benjamin R., Harrop, Bryce E., Foucar, James G., Fang, Yilin, Comeau, Darin S., Caldwell, Peter M., Bartoletti, Tony, Balaguru, Karthik, Taylor, Mark A., McCoy, Renata B., Leung, L. Ruby, Bader, David C.. (2022). The DOE E3SM Model Version 2: Overview of the physical model and initial model evaluation. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d71n851j. Accessed 15 June 2025.

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