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EC-Earth3

EC-Earth is an Earth system model that comprises coupled component models for atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and land (Hazeleger et al., 2012). Both versions used in this study have the same model configuration for atmosphere, ocean and sea ice. Besides, EC-Earth3-Veg also has an interactive vegetation module. The atmosphere component is represented by the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), cycle 36r4, of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

The EC-Earth's ocean component is represented by the version 3.6 of NEMO (Madec, 2016) using the ORCA1L75 grid with a horizontal resolution of about 1∘ and 75 vertical levels. The ocean component includes version 3 of the Louvain-la-Neuve sea ice model (LIM3; Rousset et al., 2015). LIM3 is a dynamic–thermodynamic model with a prognostic sea ice thickness scheme (Thorndike et al., 1975; Lipscomb, 2001) defined by five thickness categories. LIM3 applies the elastic–viscous–plastic (EVP) rheology for ice dynamics and also uses the ORCA1L75 grid. The sea ice model thermodynamics is characterized by an energy-conserving halo-thermodynamic scheme (Bitz and Lipscomb, 1999) with two ice layers and one snow layer. The surface albedo depends on the ice surface temperature, ice thickness, snow depth and cloudiness. The radiation absorbed by the ice follows Beer's law and does not infiltrate into the snow. LIM3 does not account for the lateral melting. Melt ponds are not included in the sea ice model.

The H-TESSEL scheme, cycle 36r4 (same as IFS), is used for the land surface (van den Hurk et al., 2000). In addition, EC-Earth3-Veg uses version 4 of the Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator (LPJ-GUESS) dynamic vegetation model (Smith et al., 2014).

Institution: EC-Earth consortium, Rossby Center, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute/SMHI, Norrkoping, Sweden
Model: Earth Consortium Version 3 (EC-Earth3) // EC-Earth3-LR // EC-Earth3-CC // EC-Earth3-AerChem
Resolution:

atmos: 100 km, land: 100 km, ocean: 100 km, seaIce: 100 km //

atmos: 250 km, land: 250 km, ocean: 100 km, seaIce: 100 km //

atmos: 100 km, atmosChem: 250 km, land: 100 km, ocean: 100 km, ocnBgchem: 100 km, seaIce: 100 km //

aerosol: 250 km, atmos: 100 km, atmosChem: 250 km, land: 100 km, ocean: 100 km, seaIce: 100 km

Components:

atmos: IFS cy36r4 (TL255, linearly reduced Gaussian grid equivalent to 512 x 256 longitude/latitude; 91 levels; top level 0.01 hPa), land: HTESSEL (land surface scheme built in IFS), ocean: NEMO3.6 (ORCA1 tripolar primarily 1 deg with meridional refinement down to 1/3 degree in the tropics; 362 x 292 longitude/latitude; 75 levels; top grid cell 0-1 m), seaIce: LIM3 //

atmos: IFS cy36r4 (TL159, linearly reduced Gaussian grid equivalent to 320 x 160 longitude/latitude; 62 levels; top level 5 hPa), land: HTESSEL (land surface scheme built in IFS), ocean: NEMO3.6 (ORCA1 tripolar primarily 1 degree with meridional refinement down to 1/3 degree in the tropics; 362 x 292 longitude/latitude; 75 levels; top grid cell 0-1 m), seaIce: LIM3 //

atmos: IFS cy36r4 (TL255, linearly reduced Gaussian grid equivalent to 512 x 256 longitude/latitude; 91 levels; top level 0.01 hPa), atmosChem: TM5 (3 x 2 degrees; 120 x 90 longitude/latitude; 34 levels; top level: 0.1 hPa), land: HTESSEL (land surface scheme built in IFS) and LPJ-GUESS v4, ocean: NEMO3.6 (ORCA1 tripolar primarily 1 degree with meridional refinement down to 1/3 degree in the tropics; 362 x 292 longitude/latitude; 75 levels; top grid cell 0-1 m), ocnBgchem: PISCES v2, seaIce: LIM3 //

aerosol: TM5 (3 x 2 degrees; 120 x 90 longitude/latitude; 34 levels; top level: 0.1 hPa), atmos: IFS cy36r4 (TL255, linearly reduced Gaussian grid equivalent to 512 x 256 longitude/latitude; 91 levels; top level 0.01 hPa), atmosChem: TM5 (3 x 2 degrees; 120 x 90 longitude/latitude; 34 levels; top level: 0.1 hPa), land: HTESSEL (land surface scheme built in IFS), ocean: NEMO3.6 (ORCA1 tripolar primarily 1 degree with meridional refinement down to 1/3 degree in the tropics; 362 x 292 longitude/latitude; 75 levels; top grid cell 0-1 m), seaIce: LIM3.

Contact: Shuting Yang, email: shuting (at) dmi.dk // Qiong Zhang, email: qiong.zhang (at) natgeo.su.se // Lars Nieradzik, email: lars.nieradzik (at) nateko.lu.se // Twan van Noije, email: noije (at) knmi.nl
References: Hazeleger, W., Wang, X., Severijns, C., Ştefănescu, S., Bintanja, R., Sterl, A., Wyser, K., Semmler, T., Yang, S., van den Hurk, B., van Noije, T., van der Linden, E., and van der Wiel, K.: EC-Earth V2.2: description and validation of a new seamless earth system prediction model, Clim. Dynam., 39, 2611–2629, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1228-5 ; Döscher, R., et al., The EC-Earth3 Earth System Model for the Climate Model Intercomparison Project 6, Geosci. Model Develop., accepted 11 Feb. 2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2020-446

Information: https://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/cerasearch/cmip6?input=CMIP6.ScenarioMIP.EC-Earth-Consortium.EC-Earth3 // https://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/cerasearch/cmip6?input=CMIP6.CMIP.EC-Earth-Consortium.EC-Earth3-LR // https://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/cerasearch/cmip6?input=CMIP6.ScenarioMIP.EC-Earth-Consortium.EC-Earth3-CC // https://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/cerasearch/cmip6?input=CMIP6.CMIP.EC-Earth-Consortium.EC-Earth3-AerChem