2016 - Clara Deser and Jennifer E. Kay

In addition to the regular releases of CESM model versions, the Large Ensemble (LE) represents one of NCAR's most significant contributions to the US climate research community. The multi-member ensemble of historical and future forcing scenario simulations has proven to be a rich resource for climate and climate change studies...

As always with such a large project the end product obscures much of the technical activity and decision-making that is necessary for its success. Jen Kay and Clara Deser were able to provide this management and leadership of the project very successfully. At a scientific level, the utility of the LE cannot be overstated. With this comprehensive set of simulations the climate analysis and modeling community is now able to provide a greater quantification of the uncertainty associated with internal climate variability.

Furthermore, the success of the project has attracted a significant contribution of additional ensemble members from member institutions and the use of forcing data to provide downscaling in WRF high-resolution climate change experiments. The LE, though only produced in 2014 and 2015, is highly used and the LE publication has already garnered over 30 citations in the literature.



Link

http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/projects/community-projects/LENS/

Citation

Kay, J.E., Deser, C., Phillips, A., Mai, A., Hannay, C., Strand, G., ... & Holland, M. (2015). The Community Earth System Model (CESM) large ensemble project: A community resource for studying climate change in the presence of internal climate variability. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 96(8), 1333-1349