Arctic sea ice seasonal transition metrics from coupled climate model simulations, 1979-2013

• Main Authors: Smith, Abigail, Jahn, Alexandra
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: NSF Arctic Data Center 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; sea ice; melt; freeze; break-up; freeze-up; opening; closing; melt season; open water; Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble; CMIP6; Kay; Laplace; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.18739/a2000014j; https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A2000014J

This dataset includes annual, gridded Arctic sea ice seasonal transition metrics (dates and periods) for fifteen Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 6 (CMIP6) models and the Community Earth System Model version 1.1 (CESM1.1) Large Ensemble (CESM LE) (Kay, et al., 2015). Seasonal transition dates include melt onset, opening, break-up, freeze onset, freeze-up and closing. Seasonal transition periods include the melt period, the seasonal loss-of-ice period, the freeze period, the seasonal gain-of-ice period, the melt season, the open water period and the outer ice-free period. Data are provided for one ensemble member of the following models: Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator CM2 (ACCESS-CM2), Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model 2 MR (BCC-CSM2-MR), Beijing Climate Center Earth System Model 1 (BCC-ESM1), Community Earth System Model 2 (CESM2), Community Earth System Model 2 FV2 (CESM2-FV2), Community Earth System Model 2 Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (CESM2-WACCM), Community Earth System Model 2 Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model FV2 (CESM2-WACCM-FV2), Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques ESM 2-1 (CNRM-ESM2-1), Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques CM 6-1 (CNRM-CM6-1), EC-Earth3, Meteorological Research Institute Earth System Model 2-0 (MRI-ESM2-0), Norwegian Earth System Model 2 LM (NorESM2-LM) and Norwegian Earth System Model 2 MM (NorESM2-MM). Data are provided for 40 members of the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble (CESM LE), 35 members of Canadian Earth System Model 5 (CanESM5) and 30 members of Institut Pierre Simon Laplace CM6A LR (IPSL-CM6A-LR). The data is stored in netcdf format, and includes metadata in the netcdf files. The raw CMIP6 and CESM LE model output that these transition metrics are calculated from are publicly available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/ and https://www.earthsystemgrid.org/ respectively. This dataset was created to evaluate climate model projections of Arctic sea ice using seasonal transition metrics in the context of both observations and internal variability. It is used in the article Smith, Jahn, Wang (2020), Seasonal transition dates can reveal biases in Arctic sea ice simulations, The Cryosphere, in press. The discussion paper with a link to the final paper can be found at https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-81. This work was conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder from 2019-2020.