ACCESS-ESM¶

ACCESS ESM model

The ACCESS Earth System Model (ACCESS-ESM) is a fully-coupled global climate model that includes atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice, ocean biogeochemistry and land biogeochemistry components, linked together by a coupler.
This means it can simulate both the physical climate and global biogeochemical cycles, in particular the carbon cycle.

ACCESS-ESM1.6¶

ACCESS-ESM1.6 is a fully-coupled climate model with land and ocean carbon cycle components. It was developed primarily to enable Australia to participate in the CMIP7 Assessment Fast Track with an ESM version.

ACCESS-ESM1.6 was developed by ACCESS-NRI and CSIRO.

Supported ESM1.6 configurations:

Concentration-driven pre-industrial control, piControl:
The piControl configuration simulates the climate prior to the industrial revolution using prescribed CO₂ concentrations and atmospheric forcings estimated for the year 1850.
Emission-driven pre-industrial control, esm-piControl:
The esm-piControl configuration simulates the climate prior to the industrial revolution using a fully interactive carbon cycle, where three-dimensional CO₂ tracers evolve freely in the atmosphere and are exchanged with the land and ocean biogeochemistry submodels.
Concentration-driven historical:
The historical configuration simulates the climate from 1850-2022 using prescribed atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and forcings.
Emission-driven historical:
The esm-historical configuration simulates the climate from 1850-2022 using a fully interactive carbon cycle and historical CO₂ anthropogenic emissions data.

Details on the forcings and parameters used in the supported configurations are available in the configuration documentation.

Model components¶

Atmosphere: UM7.3, GA7.1 science configuration.
N96 spatial resolution (1.875° x 1.25°), 38 vertical levels.
Land: CABLE3.
Land Biogeochemistry: CASA-CNP.
Ocean: MOM5.
Tripolar grid, 1° spatial resolution, 50 vertical levels.
Ocean Biogeochemistry: WOMBATlite.
Sea ice: CICE5.
Same grid as Ocean.
Coupler: OASIS3-MCT.

Run ACCESS-ESM1.6

ACCESS-ESM1.5¶

ACCESS-ESM1.5 ¹ is a fully-coupled climate model with land and ocean carbon cycle components. ACCESS-ESM1.5 was developed primarily to enable Australia to participate in the CMIP6 with an ESM version.

ACCESS-NRI has released ACCESS-ESM1.5 configurations as an adaptation of those originally developed by CSIRO and CLEX CMS.

There are currently two supported configurations:

Pre-industrial concentration driven:
A global coupled model configuration running in CO₂ concentration driven mode under pre-industrial forcings, as described in Ziehn et al. (2020). Pre-industrial forcing data including atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are primarily sourced from UKMO versions of CMIP6 inputs, with additional atmospheric forcings sourced from CMIP5 and land cover data adapted from Lawrence et al. (2012).
Historical concentration driven:
A global coupled model configuration running in CO₂ concentration driven mode under time varying historical (1850-2014) forcings, as described in Ziehn et al. (2020). Historical forcing data including atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are primarily sourced from UKMO versions of CMIP6 inputs, with land use change data adapted from the Land-Use Harmonisation 2 (LUH2) dataset developed for CMIP6 (Hurtt et al. 2017).

Model components¶

Atmosphere: UM7.3, GA7.1 science configuration.
N96 spatial resolution (1.875° x 1.25°), 38 vertical levels.
Land: CABLE2.4.
Land Biogeochemistry: CASA-CNP.
Ocean: MOM5.
Tripolar grid, 1° spatial resolution, 50 vertical levels.
Ocean Biogeochemistry: WOMBAT.
Sea ice: CICE4.1.
Same grid as Ocean.
Coupler: OASIS3-MCT.

ACCESS-ESM1.5 has an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3.87°C for doubled CO₂ concentration.

Run ACCESS-ESM1.5

Tilo Ziehn, Matthew A Chamberlain, Rachel M Law, Andrew Lenton, Roger W Bodman, Martin Dix, Lauren Stevens, Ying-Ping Wang, and Jhan Srbinovsky. The Australian Earth System Model: ACCESS-ESM1.5. Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science, 70(1):193–214, 2020. doi:10.1071/ES19035. ↩