CESM and UFS

Overview

Teaching: min
Exercises: min

Questions

• What is CESM?

• How does it differ from UFS?

• Why do we use CESM in this class?

Objectives

• Understand the differences between these two models

• Learn about CESM

Last week you learned about the NOAA/Unified Forecast System from Dr. Stan. Today we will learn about the NCAR/Community Earth System Model. How would you know which model you want to use for your work? Here are some pros/cons of each model.

NOAA/Unified Forecast System (UFS) 

• Website: https://www.ufscommunity.org/
• UFS is not yet easy to run for research purposes
• Challenging to modify for a specific purpose, but this will improve in the future – concerted effort to document and provide community support
• The “public release” version is only the Atm & Land components, although experimental unsupported atm-land-ocn versions exist.
• Existing, publicly available experiments consist of Atm/Land model re-forecasts and real-time forecasts
• Its primary mission is centered around prediction
• Components consist of Atm, Land, Ocn, Sea Ic, Aerosol, Ionosphere, Storm Surge, Waves
• Using the UFS for research has the potential to directly feedback to improving operational predictions.
• Several people in AOES work with this model as a research tool (e.g. Stan, Cash, Kinter)

NCAR/Community Earth System Model (CESM)

• Designed for community use – easy to use for research
• Large community of people working with CESM – Organized in working groups that are open to all (http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/working_groups/)
• Easy to get help, lots of documentation: (http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/)
• CESM has different (and more) Earth system components
• Many components can be combined together in endless combinations
• Easy to change configuration (e.g. output frequency, grid).
• Primary mission is climate oriented
• Many existing climate simulations and now hindcasts (CMIP, large ensemble, decadal prediction, S2S prediction)
• More recently starting to be used for prediction/predictability purposes (e.g. new Earth System Prediction Working Group).
• Lots of people in AOES work with this model.

Key Points