Identification

Title

CESM2 Tuned Sea Ice Albedo Experiments

Alternative title(s)

d651070

Abstract

<p>This study isolates the influence of sea ice mean state on pre-industrial climate and transient 1850-2100 climate change within a fully coupled global model: The Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2). The CESM2 sea ice model physics is modified to increase surface albedo, reduce surface sea ice melt, and increase Arctic sea ice thickness and late summer cover. Importantly, increased Arctic sea ice in the modified model reduces a present-day late-summer ice cover bias. Of interest to coupled model development, this bias reduction is realized without degrading the global simulation including top of atmosphere energy imbalance, surface temperature, surface precipitation, and major modes of climate variability. The influence of these sea ice physics changes on transient 1850-2100 climate change is compared within a large initial condition ensemble framework. Despite similar global warming, the modified model with thicker Arctic sea ice than CESM2 has a delayed and more realistic transition to a seasonally ice free Arctic Ocean. Differences in transient climate change between the modified model and CESM2 are challenging to detect due to large internally generated climate variability. In particular, two common sea ice benchmarks, sea ice sensitivity and sea ice trends, are of limited value for comparing models with similar global warming. More broadly, these results show the importance of a reasonable Arctic sea ice mean state when simulating the transition to an ice-free Arctic Ocean in a warming world. Additionally, this work highlights the importance of large initial condition ensembles for credible model-to-model and observation-model comparisons.</p>

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d651070/

protocol: https

name: Dataset Description

description: Related Link

function: information

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d651070/dataaccess/

protocol: https

name: Data Access

description: Related Link

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

codeSpace

Dataset language

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

dataset

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2021-03-30

Keyword set

keyword value

CESM > NCAR Community Earth System Model

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > UPPER AIR TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > HUMIDITY > SPECIFIC HUMIDITY

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS > U/V WIND COMPONENTS

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > VERTICAL WIND VELOCITY/SPEED

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > LIQUID PRECIPITATION > RAIN

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION PROFILES > LATENT HEAT FLUX

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-07-25

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

web address

https://gdex.ucar.edu

name: NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

description: The Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR, contains a large collection of meteorological, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic observations, and operational and reanalysis model outputs, integrated with NSF NCAR High Performance Compute services to support atmospheric and geosciences research.

function: download

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-10-09T01:42:44Z

Metadata language