Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling

Abstract. The Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling (ESM-BCVs) are defined as a list of 135 variables which have high utility for the evaluation and exploitation of climate simulations. The list reflects the most frequently used elements of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) archive. Successive phases of CMIP have supported strong results in science and substantially influence international climate policy formulation. This paper responds to both interest in exploiting CMIP data standards in a broader range of climate modelling activities and a need to achieve greater clarity about the significance and intention of variables in the CMIP Data Request. As Earth system modelling archives grow in scale and complexity, there are emerging problems associated with weak standardisation at the variable collection level. That is, there are good standards covering how specific variables should be archived, but this paper fills a gap in the standardisation of which variables should be archived. The ESM-BCV list is intended as a resource for ESM intercomparison projects (MIPs) developing requests to enable greater consistency among MIPs and as a reference for modelling centres to enhance consistency within MIPs. Provisional planning for the CMIP7 Data Request exploits the ESM-BCVs as a core element. The baseline variable list includes 98 variables which have modest or minor data volume footprints and could be generated systematically when simulations are produced and archived for exploitation by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) community. A further 35 variables are classed as “high volume” and are only suitable for production when the resource implications are justified.

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Publication Details

Journal
Geoscientific model development
Published
2025-05-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-2639-2025
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Climate variability and models
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.21

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article

Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling

Alessandra Nuzzo, Tomas Lovato, Carlo Buontempo, Briony Turner et al.
2 citations
Geoscientific model development
Climate variability and models
2.21
article

Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling

Alessandra Nuzzo, Tomas Lovato, Carlo Buontempo, Briony Turner, Matthew Mizielinski, Daniele Visioni, Paul James Durack, Jeremy Walton, Martina Stockhause, Jian Cao, Eleanor O’Rourke, Michio Kawamiya, Martin Juckes, Chloe Mackallah, Fabrizio Antonio, David Brayshaw, Karl E. Taylor, Beth Dingley, Hyungjun Kim
article en
2 citations

Abstract

Abstract. The Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling (ESM-BCVs) are defined as a list of 135 variables which have high utility for the evaluation and exploitation of climate simulations. The list reflects the most frequently used elements of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) archive. Successive phases of CMIP have supported strong results in science and substantially influence international climate policy formulation. This paper responds to both interest in exploiting CMIP data standards in a broader range of climate modelling activities and a need to achieve greater clarity about the significance and intention of variables in the CMIP Data Request. As Earth system modelling archives grow in scale and complexity, there are emerging problems associated with weak standardisation at the variable collection level. That is, there are good standards covering how specific variables should be archived, but this paper fills a gap in the standardisation of which variables should be archived. The ESM-BCV list is intended as a resource for ESM intercomparison projects (MIPs) developing requests to enable greater consistency among MIPs and as a reference for modelling centres to enhance consistency within MIPs. Provisional planning for the CMIP7 Data Request exploits the ESM-BCVs as a core element. The baseline variable list includes 98 variables which have modest or minor data volume footprints and could be generated systematically when simulations are produced and archived for exploitation by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) community. A further 35 variables are classed as “high volume” and are only suitable for production when the resource implications are justified.

Geoscientific model developmentVol. 18(9)
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (AU), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU), Met Office (GB), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JP), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KR), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (CN), Cornell University (US), German Climate Computing Centre (DE), University of Oxford (GB), UK Research and Innovation (GB), CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (IT), Climate Centre (NL), ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (AU), Element Six (United Kingdom) (GB), University of Reading (GB)
U.S. Department of Energy, UK Research and Innovation, European Space Agency, European Commission, National Research Foundation, Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, National Research Foundation of Korea, Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea, Office of Science, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Horizon 2020, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Openalex Percentile: Top 14%
Climate variability and models
2.21
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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