Climate Variability & Change
Working Group CVCWG

CCSM3/CAM3/CAM2 Simulations

CAM3 T85 U.S. CLIVAR Drought Working Group Simulations

A suite of runs was conducted by the CCSM Climate Variability Working Group in support of the U.S. CLIVAR Drought Working Group. Eleven unique idealized SST simulations, one control simulation, and one AMIP-style simulation were completed. All runs, with the exception of the single AMIP simulation, were run for 51 years, of which the last 50 years of data is available. The AMIP simulation was run from January 1871 through December 2006. The simulations are as of follows:

  • Control Run (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_sstcl_01 / Cont)
    Control Experiment with monthly climatological SSTs that were calculated from the 1902-1999 period.
  • Warm Global Linear Trend (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_trepos_01 / LTw)
    Forcing: Global positive linear trend anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs.
  • Cold Pacific Cold Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_PcAc_01 / PcAc)
    Forcing: Negative Pacific SST anomalies and negative Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Cold Pacific (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_ipneg_01 / PcAn)
    Forcing: Negative Pacific SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Cold Pacific Warm Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_PcAw_01 / PcAw)
    Forcing: Negative Pacific SST anomalies and positive Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Cold Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_Ac_01 / PnAc)
    Forcing: Negative Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Warm Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_atlpos_01 / PnAw)
    Forcing: Positive Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Warm Tropical Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_tapos_01 / PnTAw)
    Positive Tropical Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain. Forcing comes from the tropical part of the Atlantic forcing used for the Warm Atlantic experiment.
  • Warm Pacific Cold Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_PwAc_01 / PwAc)
    Forcing: Positive Pacific SST anomalies and negative Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Warm Pacific (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_Pw_01 / PwAn)
    Forcing: Positive Pacific SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Warm Pacific Warm Atlantic (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_PwAw_01 / PwAw)
    Forcing: Positive Pacific SST anomalies and positive Atlantic SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain.
  • Cold Tropical Pacific (cam3_3_17_t85_dwg_tpneg_01 / TPcAn)
    Negative Tropical Pacific SST anomalies superposed on monthly climatological SSTs; climatological conditions remain in the rest of the global domain. Forcing comes from the tropical part of the Atlantic forcing used for the Cold Pacific experiment.
  • AMIP (cam3_3_17_t85_vamip_01 / AMIP)
    Forcing: Historical SST and sea-ice forcing from Hurrell's blended version of the HadISST and Reynold's datasets.
Numerous modeling centers completed these runs and others with the exact same forcing used in the simulations shown above. For more information about the U.S. CLIVAR Drought Working Group modeling experiments, see http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/clivar_drought_wg/index.html Details about how the idealized forcings were created can also be found at the above link.

Model Version: cam3_3_17 (with clm3_expa_66)
Data Availability: Selected monthly atmospheric variables.
Data Location: /glade/campaign/cgd/cas/asphilli/CAM3_CLIVAR_DWG

We kindly ask that you acknowledge the CVCWG when presenting results based on these simulations in either oral and written form.