Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM)

The Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM) is a state-of-the-art land-ice model used to simulate the evolution of ice sheets and glaciers in past, present, and future environments. CISM is the dynamic land-ice component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), where it is used for coupled simulations with interactive ice sheets. CISM can also run as a standalone land-ice or glacier model, and as such has participated in many community intercomparison projects. The code is open-source and is freely available from the Earth System Community Modeling Portal on github.

CISM is a 3D, thermomechanical model that solves equations for the conservation of mass, energy, and momentum in flowing ice. CISM’s higher-order dynamical core, known as Glissade, includes a hierarchy of approximations for the Stokes ice-flow equations, along with detailed parameterizations of basal sliding, subglacial hydrology, sub-ice-shelf melting, iceberg calving, and other physical processes. CISM also supports dynamic simulations of mountain glaciers at regional scales. See Lipscomb et al. (2019) and the CESM land-ice documentation for more details.

CISM evolved from the Glimmer ice sheet model originally developed in the U.K. (Rutt et al., 2009). Further development was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER) and Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) programs. CISM is now developed primarily by researchers at NSF NCAR with support from the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the international group of scientists participating in the CESM Land Ice Working Group (LIWG). Please contact the LIWG co-chairs and liaisons for more information on developing and using CISM.