The DOE E3SM Model Version 2: Overview of the Physical Model and Initial Model Evaluation

Abstract

This work documents version two of the Department of Energy’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). E3SMv2 is a significant evolution from its predecessor E3SMv1, resulting in a model that is nearly twice as fast and with a simulated climate that is improved in many metrics. We describe the physical climate model in its lower horizontal resolution configuration consisting of 110 km atmosphere, 165 km land, 0.5° river routing model, and an ocean and sea ice with mesh spacing varying between 60 km in the mid-latitudes and 30 km at the equator and poles. The model performance is evaluated with Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Characterization of Klima simulations augmented with historical simulations as well as simulations to evaluate impacts of different forcing agents. The simulated climate has many realistic features of the climate system, with notable improvements in clouds and precipitation compared to E3SMv1. E3SMv1 suffered from an excessively high equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of 5.3 K. In E3SMv2, ECS is reduced to 4.0 K which is now within the plausible range based on a recent World Climate Research Program assessment. However, a number of important biases remain including a weak Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, deficiencies in the characteristics and spectral distribution of tropical atmospheric variability, and a significant underestimation of the observed warming in the second half of the historical period. An analysis of single-forcing simulations indicates that correcting the historical temperature bias would require a substantial reduction in the magnitude of the aerosol-related forcing.Plain Language SummaryThe U.S. Department of Energy recently released version two of its Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). E3SMv2 experienced a significant evolution in many of its model components (most notably the atmosphere and sea ice models), and its supporting software infrastructure. In this work, we document the computational performance of E3SMv2 and analyze its ability to reproduce the observed climate. To accomplish this, we utilize the standard Diagnosis and Evaluation and Characterization of Klima experiments augmented with historical simulations for the period 1850–2015. We find that E3SMv2 is nearly twice as fast as its predecessor and more accurately reproduces the observed climate in a number of metrics, most notably clouds and precipitation. We also find that the model’s simulated response to increasing carbon dioxide (the equilibrium climate sensitivity) is much more realistic. Unfortunately, E3SMv2 underestimates the global mean surface temperature compared to observations during the second half of historical period. Using sensitivity experiments, where forcing agents (carbon dioxide, aerosols) are selectively disabled in the model, we determine that correcting this problem would require a strong reduction in the impact of aerosols.Key PointsE3SMv2 is nearly twice as fast as E3SMv1 with a simulated climate that is improved in many metrics (e.g., precipitation and clouds)Climate sensitivity is substantially lower with a more plausible equilibrium climate sensitivity of 4.0 K (compared to an unlikely value of 5.3 K in E3SMv1)E3SMv2 underestimates the warming in the late historical period due to excessive aerosol-related forcing