Welcome to UK Earth System Model (UKESM) News from the Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme (JWCRP).
The UK Earth system modelling project is a joint venture between the Met Office and the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) to develop and apply a world-leading Earth System Model.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact us at ukesm@ncas.ac.uk
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Spinning up marine biogeochemistry in UKESM1
by Andrew Yool, Julien Palmiéri and Lee de Mora.
As part of the UK’s preparations for CMIP6 – and to specifically address the ocean’s carbon cycle – spin-up simulations of the low resolution version of UKESM1 (UKESM-lr) have been planned and now begun. To this end, the marine carbon cycle of UKESM1-lr has been initialised from estimated pre-industrial conditions and has been spinning up in ocean-only mode using atmospheric forcing (including winds, radiation, heat and freshwater fluxes) derived from an atmosphere-land simulation that employed sea surface temperatures (SST), sea-ice (SIC) and atmospheric gases, including CO2, representative of pre-industrial conditions.
Nitrogen and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle in UKESM1
by Andy Wiltshire.
One key aspect of Earth System Models (ESM) that distinguishes them from their (physical) Global Climate Model (GCM) relations is the inclusion of interactive biogeochemical processes, such as the carbon cycle. An important additional phenomenon, generally not included in the current generation of ESMs, is the role nutrients play in plant productivity. Most current generation ESMs assume no nutrient limitation in their simulation of carbon cycle responses to increasing atmospheric CO2 and a changing climate. UKESM1 will include a representation of the terrestrial nitrogen cycle.
Implementing the CMIP6 data request
by Jeremy Walton.
The World Climate Research Program’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) aims to improve our understanding of, and ability to simulate, key climate phenomena and future climate change using a coordinated multi-model approach. The UK contribution to CMIP6 will be made through a collaboration involving the Met Office, NERC centres and UK universities. It will use the UKESM1 earth system climate model and the GC3.1 configuration of the HadGEM3 physical climate model.
The UKESM LTSM project kick-off meeting
by Colin Jones.
Close to 40 scientists involved in the NERC-funded UKSM Long Term Science Multi-centre (LTSM) project recently met at the University of Reading (July 4-5th) to begin work on this exciting new project. Participants from all eight of the NERC centres, as well as the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC), attended the meeting enabling an extremely productive start to the project.
Upcoming events
ECMWF’s annual seminar: 5-8 Sept 2016, Reading
Earth system modelling for seamless prediction – deadline for registration 4th August 2016. This seminar is open to participants from the ECMWF’s Member and Co-operating States. ECMWF annual seminar 2016
CLIVAR open science conference: 18-25 Sept 2016, Qingdao, China
The World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) Core Project on Climate and Ocean – CLIVAR – invites the international climate community to review the state of the science, to prioritize international research plans and to initiate new collaborations. CLIVAR website.
CRESCENDO 2016 General Assembly: 27-29 Sept 2016, Rome, Italy
The H2020 Project CRESCENDO (Coordinated Research in Earth Systems and Climate: Experiments, kNowledge, Dissemination and Outreach) celebrates this year its General Assembly in the Italian city of Rome. CRESCENDO 2016 General Assembly registration.
NERC Into the Blue Exhibition: 25-29 Oct 2016, Manchester
The UKESM project will participate at this free-to-exhibit opportunity to showcase our research. An event organised by NERC during October half-term and that will be centred around the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) research aircraft. NERC Into the Blue opportunity.
ACSIS Kick-off meeting on 5 Dec at the Wellcome Auditorium in London
The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study: ACSIS, has been fully funded for five years (2016-2021) through NERC’s Long Term Science commissioning, led by NCAS Director for Climate, Professor Rowan Sutton. Its kick-off meeting will be held on the 5th Dec at the Wellcome Auditorium in London with the theme “Recent trends in the North Atlantic Climate System”. Learn more about ACSIS by going to the project pages, or go directly to the project objectives page.
