Data · dataset · 2026
The influence of atmospheric grid resolution in a climate model-forced ice sheet simulation
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
Coupled climate-ice sheet simulations have been growing in popularity in recent years.
Description
Experiments of this type are however challenging as ice sheets evolve over multi-millennial timescales, which is beyond the practical integration limit of most Earth system models. A common method to increase model throughput is to trade resolution for computational efficiency (compromise accuracy for speed).
Here we analyze how the resolution of an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) influences the simulation quality in a stand-alone ice sheet model. Four identical AGCM simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) were run at different horizontal resolutions: T85 (1.4 degrees), T42 (2.8 degrees), T31 (3.8 degrees), and T21 (5.6 degrees). These simulations were subsequently used as forcing of an ice sheet model.
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While the T85 climate forcing reproduces the LGM ice sheets to a high accuracy, the intermediate resolution cases (T42 and T31) fail to build the Eurasian ice sheet. The T21 case fails in both Eurasia and North America. Sensitivity experiments using different surface mass balance parameterizations improve the simulations of the Eurasian ice sheet in the T42 case, but the compromise is a substantial ice buildup in Siberia.
The T31 and T21 cases do not improve in the same way in Eurasia, though the latter simulates the continent-wide Laurentide ice sheet in North America. The difficulty to reproduce the LGM ice sheets in the T21 case is in broad agreement with previous studies using low-resolution atmospheric models, and is caused by a substantial deterioration of the model climate between the T31 and T21 resolutions. It is speculated that this deficiency may demonstrate a fundamental problem with using low-resolution atmospheric models in these types of experiments.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7qj7m25 ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/the-influence-of-atmospheric-grid-resolution-in-a-clim… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=61dcd206-7664-49d0-8213-0e62a7f29… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Climate change science 73% · Simulation 75%
Provenance · 1 source records, 9 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 61dcd206-7664-49d0-8213-0e62a7f29338 | 12 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].anzsrc:group:3702 | enrichment · data ucar edu | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (73%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].local:method:simulation | enrichment · data ucar edu | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |