The latest incarnation of the GISS series of coupled atmosphere-ocean models is now available. Called ModelE, it is a complete rewrite of Model II' physics, combined with greater flexibility and more options. These include better representations of the stratosphere, tracer components and various ocean models.

The frozen version used for upcoming IPCC simulations (see below) and the controls for upcoming model description papers is denoted as ModelE1 (internal version number 3.0, dated Feb. 1, 2004). This code can be freely downloaded (as a 1.2 MB gzip-ed tar file) from modelE1.tar.gz.

Boundary and initial conditions for all of the template rundecks can be downloaded from fixed.tar.gz (191 MB). This is a large amount of data due to things like transient 3-D aerosol concentrations etc. If a smaller selection of data is preferred, please contact us. There are many variants of this data available internally, so if you do not find the configuration you'd like, let us know and we may be able to help you.

Note that this public domain version of the code does not contain some of the more experimental tracer submodules (chemistry, aerosols, dust, cosmogenic isotopes, etc.) and only one of the dynamic ocean models. If you are interested in using or working with these components, please contact the scientists involved directly. There is, however, a great deal of generic tracer coding and enough examples to allow people to develop their own tracer modules. We greatly appreciate community involvement on some of these issues. Please let us know if you intend to use this code by subscribing to our mailing list. Send e-mail to majordomo@giss.nasa.gov with the line SUBSCRIBE giss-gcm-users-l in the body of the text. We will then keep you informed about code patches and possible improvements to the configuration.

Documentation is included in the distribution (under directory doc/), and is included below for reference. System requirements and configuration of the distribution for any new system is discussed in detail.

GISS GCM Documentation Index

General Documentation

Model documentation, including the ModelE specification and results from three standard configurations, is given in the following journal article:

• Schmidt, G.A., R. Ruedy, J.E. Hansen, I. Aleinov, N. Bell, M. Bauer, S. Bauer, B. Cairns, V. Canuto, Y. Cheng, A. Del Genio, G. Faluvegi, A.D. Friend, T.M. Hall, Y. Hu, M. Kelley, N.Y. Kiang, D. Koch, A.A. Lacis, J. Lerner, K.K. Lo, R.L. Miller, L. Nazarenko, V. Oinas, Ja. Perlwitz, Ju. Perlwitz, D. Rind, A. Romanou, G.L. Russell, Mki. Sato, D.T. Shindell, P.H. Stone, S. Sun, N. Tausnev, D. Thresher, and M.-S. Yao 2006. Present day atmospheric simulations using GISS ModelE: Comparison to in-situ, satellite and reanalysis data. J. Climate 19, 153-192.

Other scholarly articles on ModelE development include:

• Aleinov, I., and G.A. Schmidt 2006. Water isotopes in the GISS ModelE land surface scheme. Global Planet. Change 51, 108-120, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2005.12.010.
• Koch, D., G.A. Schmidt, and C.V. Field 2006. Sulfur, sea salt and radionuclide aerosols in GISS ModelE. J. Geophys. Res. 111, D06206, doi:10.1029/2004JD005550.
• Miller, R.L., R.V. Cakmur, Ja. Perlwitz, I.V. Geogdzhayev, P. Ginoux, K.E. Kohfeld, D. Koch, C. Prigent, R. Ruedy, G.A. Schmidt, and I. Tegen 2006. Mineral dust aerosols in the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Sciences ModelE atmospheric general circulation model. J. Geophys. Res. 111, D06208, doi:10.1029/2005JD005796.

Other available documentation includes:

• ModelE Reference Manual
• Frequently Asked Questions about the GISS model
• HOW-TO document for the GCM
• Options for running the GISS GCM

F90 Code Viewer

The source code corresponding to the basic configuration of ModelE1 can be seen in it's entirety using the f90t0html software package. This allows you to jump around the code in a very intuitive graphical interface. Feel free to notify us of any errors you might find!

Source Code Repository

View source code in the repository (access limited to the giss.nasa.gov domain) for latest updates, etc. This link allows you to view all the source files currently in CVS repository together with their older versions. You can also make comparisons between different versions of the same file.

IPCC AR4 Model Configuration and Description

GISS has submitted a number of different configurations to the IPCC AR4 model data repository at PCMDI. The configurations are as follows:

• GISS-ER: ModelE20/Russell 4x5xL20. This uses the ModelE atmospheric code (internal version number E3), with 20 layers in the vertical, a model top at 0.1 mb and coupled to the Russell ocean model (4x5xL13). This corresponds to the rundeck E1aoM20.R in the distribution given above.
• GISS-EH: ModelE20/HYCOM 4x5xL20. This uses the same atmospheric model as the previous version, but coupled instead to HYCOM (v. 0.9, 2x2xL16). This is not yet part of the public distribution.
• GISS-AOM: (C4x3) This is a separate developmental offshoot. See here for more details.

Since the simulations were originally submitted there have been a number of updates of various fields. However, PCMDI has not placed all of these new files on their public server due to space limitations. We will endeavour to keep track of the various corrections and known problems with our simulations on this dedicated page. Further corrections and clarifications can be found at the PCMDI errata list.

If you require any further details on these configurations, please read the submitted papers, or contact us as described below.

Other ModelE Simulations

The results of various ModelE simulations conducted by GISS scientists may be found in the Datasets section of the GISS website.

Contacts

Please address all inquiries about the ModelE code to:

Dr. Gavin Schmidt
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025 USA
gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov