Project Summary: The E3SMv2-SMBB Large Ensemble is a model sensitivity experiment to explore the sensitivity of E3SM2 to the CMIP6 prescription of biomass burning emissions (vanMarle et al. 2017). The motivation for this experiment arose from an issue previously identified for CESM2 (Fasullo et al. 2022) documenting a spurious warming arising from the CMIP6 prescription of biomass emission variability. To test the E3SMv2 sensitivity to CMIP6 biomass burning emissions we conducted an additional ensemble of 21 members, from approximately 1990 to 2085 using “smoothed” climatological satellite-era CMIP6 biomass emissions. The E3SM2 smoothed biomass members follow an identical approach as that used for the CESM2 LE (see Rodgers et al. 2021).

Findings: In Fasullo et al. (2022), a sensitivity in CESM2 to these emissions was shown to drive a strong high latitude warming, owing to an abrupt increase in emission variability in 1997 that via nonlinear interactions with clouds drove a rectified reduction in mean albedo from 40ºN -70ºN. Here, based on the ensemble mean differences between the E3SM2 LE and smoothed biomass LE it is shown further that E3SM2 exhibits a similar, albeit somewhat weaker, response. The response is characterized for example by reductions in cloud albedo and increases in T2m, SWTOM, and surface net SW flux though with magnitudes that are reduced somewhat from those in CESM2. The net reductions correspond to extremes in biomass emissions, which are particularly high in 1998 and 2003 and relatively low in most other years (see Fasullo et al. 2022, Figure 1f). These variations result in radiation and T2m anomalies that are negative during years of high emissions but positive and of comparable magnitude during the more frequent years of low emissions, and thus drive a net warming. The spatial structure of the warming is characterized by the strongest responses over NH land and the Arctic Ocean, where a warming response up to 0.5K is simulated. Details of the interactions between emissions, clouds, radiation, and the broader climate state will be addressed in follow-on work.

The E3SMv2-SMBB-LE was produced by the Cooperative Agreement To Analyze variabiLity, change and predictabilitY in the Earth SysTem (CATALYST) group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and DOE researchers at the Lawrence Livermore (LLNL) and Los Alamos (LANL) National Labs. The project and the members of this collaboration were supported under the Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) and Earth System Model Development (ESMD) components of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling (EESM) Program. This work was also supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). An Energy Research Computing Allocations Process (ERCAP 2022-2023) HPC computing allocation award enabled the production of this dataset.

This project contributes to specific goals of the DOE funded CATALYST project, and more broadly to RGMA, by providing future climate simulations that allow for an evaluation of the model's forced response. An analogous large ensemble using the Community Earth System Model (CESM2) (CESM2 LENS2) is available for model intercomparison.

Model Version: E3SMv2

Resolution: Low Resolution (ne30pg2_EC30to60E2r2)

Historical: 1990-2014

Scenario: SSP370: 2015-2085

Compset: WCYCL20TR, WCYCLSSP370

Ensemble size: 21 members

Experiments:

  • v2.LR.historical_YYYY with YYYY = 0101 0111 0121 0131 0141 0151 0161 0171 0181 0191 0201 0211 0221 0231 0241 0251 0261 0271 0281 0291 0301
  • v2.LR.SSP370 with YYYY = 0101 0111 0121 0131 0141 0151 0161 0171 0181 0191 0201 0211 0221 0231 0241 0251 0261 0271 0281 0291 0301

Machine: NERSC cori-knl.

Computing Resource: SSP370 portion: ERCAP 2022

Data :

  • Native data: zstash archive (NERSC HPSS: /home/c/ccsm/E3SMv2/)
  • Timeseries data available from NERSC data portal: portal.nersc.gov
  • Regridded data is available at NCAR Campaign Store (/glade/campaign/cgd/ccr/E3SMv2/)
  • Additional data may be available upon request.

CATALYST contacts:

  • John Fasullo (fasullo@ucar.edu):
  • Nan Rosenbloom (nanr@ucar.edu):
  • Gary Strand (strandwg@ucar.edu):

Publications and Project Products:

  • Fasullo, J., Golaz, J.-C., Caron, J., Rosenbloom, N., Meehl, G., Strand, W., Glanville, S., Stevenson, S., Molina, M., Shields, C., Zhang, C., Benedict, J., and Bartoletti, T.: An Overview of the E3SM version 2 Large Ensemble and Comparison to other E3SM and CESM Large Ensembles, EGUsphere [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2310, 2023.

    • Acknowledging Use of E3SMv2-SSP370-LE Data

    E3SMv2-SMBB data will be available for download at portal.nersc.gov. We request that you cite both the data DOI (https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2310) as well as the dataset description paper (Fasullo et al. 2023) in work that makes use of E3SMv2-LE, E3SMv2-SSP370-LE, and E3SMv2-SMBB.