NCAR CESM Global Atmosphere Climate Model Output

Climate model output data from NCAR's Community Earth System Model CMIP5 runs provides six hourly intervals for the 3-D global atmosphere. It includes a 20th Century simulation from 1950 to 2005 and three Representative Concentration Pathway future scenarios spanning 2005 to 2100. These computer runs were completed in 2011 by the SCIOPS organization.

Use Cases

• Analyze future climate scenarios using surface temperature and other single-level grid parameters from the RCP 8.5, 4.5, and 2.6 projections.
• Provide boundary conditions for regional weather models using six hourly specific humidity, temperature, and wind components from the 26 hybrid level surfaces.
• Study historical atmospheric dynamics from 1950-2005 using the time-series archive files of geopotential height and temperature.
• Compare model outputs across different temporal scales by selecting subsets from the monthly synoptic time archive files.

Strengths

• Data spans a long temporal range from 1950 to 2100 across multiple scenarios.
• Provides atmospheric parameters on 26 model hybrid level surfaces for detailed 3-D analysis.
• Offers user-selectable subsets for parameter, temporal, and spatial analysis from monthly files.

Limitations

• The RCP2.6 scenario data has been removed due to corrupted data from a model bug.
• Data is based on model runs completed in 2011, which may not reflect the latest model versions.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and complete column lists are not provided.

Provenance

Source

NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM) CMIP 5 runs.

Collection Method

Climate model simulation output.

Time Range

1950-2100 (historical 1950-2005 and future scenarios 2005-2100).

Geography

Global atmosphere.