ANTSI: Variable-Resolution CESM2 Climate Model Outputs for Antarctica, 1979-2015

Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are the focus of this dataset, which contains monthly outputs from a Variable-Resolution Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2) simulation from 1979 to 2015. The simulation uses an AMIP-style (data-driven ocean and sea ice) setup with a 1° global resolution refined to 0.25° over the Antarctic region. It was created by Rajashree Tri Datta at the University of Colorado Boulder with support from NSF and NCAR, and includes atmospheric and ice sheet variables for evaluation.

Use Cases

• Evaluate Antarctic ice sheet mass balance based on variables like SNOW, QICE, and QSNOMELT.
• Analyze atmospheric circulation and moisture transport over the Southern Ocean based on variables like U, V, and Q.
• Study surface energy fluxes over the Antarctic continent based on variables like FLDS, FSDS, and SHFLX.
• Validate precipitation patterns (rain and snow) in climate models over high southern latitudes based on PRECC, PRECL, and RAIN variables.

Strengths

• Simulation covers a 37-year period from 1979 to 2015, providing a multi-decadal climate context.
• Employs variable-resolution modeling with a refined 0.25° grid over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, offering higher detail for the region of interest.
• Includes a specified set of evaluation variables for both the atmosphere (e.g., FLDS, Q, U) and the ice sheet (e.g., SNOW, FIRA, QSOIL).

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale processing.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from external CESM2/NCAR documentation after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Variable-Resolution CESM2 simulation outputs from the University of Colorado Boulder/NCAR.

Collection Method

AMIP-style (data-driven ocean and sea ice) climate model simulation.

Time Range

1979 to 2015

Geography

Global with refined focus on Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.