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Earth System Model Development Team (ESMDT)
June 30, 2004
Mission Statement
ESMDT’s primary purpose is to adapt GFDL's state-of-the-art, coupled climate models for simulation of the global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and other elements. This effort utilizes the many resources available at Princeton University and elsewhere for the modeling of atmospheric dynamics, ocean dynamics, land dynamics and hydrology, ice dynamics, atmospheric chemistry, land biogeochemistry and ocean biogeochemistry. The central goal is a tool for decadal to centennial scale studies of climate change and variability on land ecosystems, ocean ecosystems and carbon cycling and studies of the strength of these feedbacks on climate.In addition, it is anticipated that some of the initial issues of code development and initialization will be addressed in the context of more computationally efficient or otherwise simplified forms of these component models (though utilizing the same code base). The ESMDT agenda is thus to:
Integrate physical climate and biogeochemical cycling component model codes into an earth system model code suitable for decadal to centennial scale studies.
Develop an evaluation strategy: identify performance criteria, compile datasets, implement a diagnostic set and design experiments to demonstrate fidelity.
Provide GFDL and its collaborators with the modeling capabilities to address CCSP goals and to answer questions of the type posed in the IPCC process, and those of broader scientific community.
Proposed Initial Team Membership
Team leaders: Dunne, Sarmiento, Toggweiler
Potential Members: Shevliakova, Malyshev, Gnanadesikan, Slater, Sweeney, Simeon, Russell, Griffies, Cooke, Arbic, Hallberg, Liu, Stouffer, Thompson, Fan, Fiore, Milly, Levy, Gross, Held, Winton, Pacala, Balaji.