Title:	Climate Modelling of the past, present and future with EC-Earth
DNr:	SNIC 2014/8-18
Project Type:	SNIC Large Compute
Principal Investigator:	Kristofer Döös <doos@misu.su.se>
Affiliation:	Stockholms universitet
Duration:	2014-07-01 – 2015-07-01
Classification:	10501 10509 10508
Homepage:	http://www.bolin.su.se/
Keywords:

Abstract

The EC-Earth climate model is today used in a number of applications here at the Bert Bolin Centre for Climate Research (BBCC) at Stockholm University. The EC-Earth climate model is our main tool in studying the climate. It is hence of vital importance for all our research that we continue to have access to high performance computational (HPC) resources. The Bolin Centre was recently awarded a strategic government grant to strengthen the research area of climate modelling. These funds have led to more than 10 new positions in the Centre, seven at senior faculty level. As part of the EC-EARTH consortium, we, at the Bert Bolin Centre for Climate Research in collaboration with the Rossby Centre at SMHI, have implemented the EC-Earth model on the Vagn-Ekman super computer and have made a number of model integrations, such as historic simulations and scenarios of future possible climates taking into account an increased amount of greenhouse gases. These will be part of the CMIP5 (5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project ) experiments organised by the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), which will form an essential part of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. The atmospheric component of EC-Earth is based on the modelling systems of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the ocean component is based on the NEMO global ocean circulation model. At present we are developing the new next generation of EC-Earth climate model, which uses a coupled, global atmosphere/ocean/land/sea-ice model, a so called Earth System Model (ESM), in combination with observations and process models, to advance our understanding of climate system dynamics and the response of the climate to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier Global Climate Models (GCMs) described only the physical-dynamical climate system. ESMs extend GCMs to include other important Earth System processes, such as biogeochemical cycles and interactive atmospheric chemistry, each of which may respond to, or modify an initial climate change signal. Our goal is to develop and evaluate a next-generation ESM to increase confidence in future climate change projections. This effort will feed into national, European and international climate change assessments, such as those of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In addition to the main climate modelling effort we have a number of individual research applications using EC-Earth involving the majority of the staff at our department. These research areas rely heavily on access to substantial high performance computational (HPC) resources, as well as on specific software, in terms of advanced computer codes developed or improved at the three applying centres.