CESM1 Pacific Pacemaker Ensemble

A 20-member ensemble of CESM1 (1 degree spatial resolution) simulations in which time-evolving SST anomalies in the eastern tropical Pacific (10S–10N, 160–90W, with a linearly tapering buffer zone that extends to 20S and 20N, 180W to the American coast) are nudged to observations (NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature version 3: ERSSTv3b) during 1920-2013. In this way, the observed evolution of ENSO is maintained in each simulation (i.e., ENSO is the pacemaker), with the rest of the model’s coupled climate system free to evolve. Note that only the SST anomalies, not the total SST, are nudged to observations, maintaining the model’s mean state, including any model biases. Further details are provided in the two papers below:

  • Deser, C., I. R. Simpson, K. A. McKinnon and A. S. Phillips, 2017: The Northern Hemisphere extra-tropical atmospheric circulation response to ENSO: How well do we know it and how do we evaluate models accordingly? J. Climate, 30, 5059-5082, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0844.1.

    [Article] [Corrigendum]
  • Deser, C., R. Guo and F. Lehner, 2017: The relative contributions of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and atmospheric internal variability to the recent global warming hiatus. Geophys. Res. Lett., doi: 10.1002/2017GL074273.

    [Article] [Supplementary Material]

We kindly ask that you reference one of these papers and acknowledge the CVCWG when presenting results based on the CESM1 Pacemaker Ensemble in either oral and written form.

Project Details

  • Simulation Names:
    • b.e11.B20TRLENS.f09_g16.SST.restoring.ensXX / b.e11.BRCP85LENS.f09_g16.SST.restoring.ensXX, XX = 01-20
  • Model Version: CESM1.1 Codebase | Documentation
  • Resolution: 0.9x1.25_gx1v6 (CESM nominal 1o grid)
  • Years: 1920-2013
  • Ensemble Size: 20 members
  • Time Frequencies Saved: Monthly, Daily
  • Machine: NCAR:Cheyenne and NCAR:Yellowstone
  • Compsets: B20TRLENS / BRCP85LENS

  • Additional Notes: SST anomalies (20°N-20°S,180-80°W) nudged to ERSSTv3b observations. All CMIP5 time-varying external, natural and anthropogenic forcings were specified in this ensemble.

Data Acquisition

This data is available on both the NCAR Climate Data Gateway (Web Access) and NCAR's casper system (NCAR Internal).

  • NCAR Internal

    Location on NCAR's campaign store or on the NCAR machine casper:

    /glade/collections/cdg/data/PAC-PACEMAKER/

  • Web Access

    The following are step by step directions on how to download this data from the Climate Data Gateway.

    1. Proceed to the Climate Data Gateway CESM1 Pacific Pacemaker page.
    2. Scroll to the bottom of that page under Child Datasets, and click on the component and time frequency you are interested in.
    3. The files are organized by variable, listed at the end of each link. Click on the variable you are interested in.
    4. Click on the Download Options button. At this point, if you have not logged into the Climate Data Gateway you can do so now. If you have not registered before, registration is free and quick.
    5. Upon logging in you will see a file listing. Once you have identified a file that you would like to download, click on the check box to the left of the file name. Note that you can select multiple files on this page at once. (However, one cannot select/download multiple files across variables at once.) When you are finished selecting files, scroll to the top (or bottom) of the page and click on the Download Options for Selection box.
    6. Click the Request File Transfer from Archive, and choose whether to use a Curl or Wget script to download your selected data.