The EC-Earth3 Earth system model for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6

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Overview

Paper Summary

Conflicts of Interest

Identified Weaknesses

Rating Explanation

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Paper Summary

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Europe's Got a New Climate Model (But It's Still Got a Warm Southern Ocean)

EC-Earth3, a new Earth system model developed by a European consortium, shows improved performance compared to its predecessor in simulating key climate variables, including atmospheric circulation, sea ice, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. However, biases remain, especially a warm Southern Ocean and underestimated Antarctic sea ice, which require further investigation.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified

Identified Weaknesses

Limited Replicability

The authors acknowledge that bit-for-bit reproducibility is generally not feasible due to hardware and software differences across HPC systems. While their replicability test helps identify statistical consistency, it may not catch spatially varying biases that could still affect results.

Southern Ocean Bias

The model's Southern Ocean warm bias and underestimated Antarctic sea ice are persistent issues that could significantly impact simulations of global climate, ocean circulation, and sea level rise.

Stratospheric Dynamics

While EC-Earth3 shows an improved QBO compared to its predecessor, the model still lacks a stratospheric semiannual oscillation above 5 hPa, indicating incomplete representation of stratospheric dynamics.

Arctic Sea Ice Biases

The model's overestimation of Arctic sea ice volume and thickness, alongside regional discrepancies in sea ice concentration, highlight limitations in simulating Arctic sea ice processes and their feedbacks.

Simplified Lake Treatment

The lack of an explicit lake model and reliance on ocean model extrapolation can lead to inaccurate representation of lake temperatures and ice cover, potentially impacting regional climate simulations.

Limited Carbon Cycle Analysis

The carbon cycle component analysis is limited to a single historical experiment member and does not include climate feedback, hindering a full assessment of the model's coupled carbon cycle performance.

Rating Explanation

EC-Earth3 demonstrates significant improvements over its predecessor and performs well against observations for many key climate variables. The detailed documentation and flexible framework are valuable assets. However, persistent biases, particularly in the Southern Ocean and Arctic sea ice, and limitations in certain components like lake treatment and stratospheric dynamics prevent a higher rating.

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