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Forcing Specifications Overview

The CMIP7-Input suite processes raw climate forcing datasets into formats directly ingestible by the Unified Model (UM) and the CABLE land surface model within ACCESS-ESM1.6.

Physical Forcing Domains

The workflow processes 8 distinct physical forcing domains alongside automated model configuration synchronization:

mindmap
  root((CMIP7 Forcings))
    Atmospheric Chemistry
      Greenhouse Gases (GHG)
        Concentrations (9 species)
        clmchfcg namelist
      Ozone (O3)
        UKESM1 Zonal Mean Regridding
        3D Monthly Ancillaries
    Aerosol and Particulate
      Aerosol Emissions
        Black Carbon (BC)
        Organic Carbon (OC)
        Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)
        Biomass Burning (Bio)
      Nitrogen Deposition
        Dry and Wet Deposition
    Radiative and Energy
      Solar Irradiance (TSI)
        Solar Constant (PI)
        Annual Timeseries (HI, SM)
      Volcanic Aerosols (SAOD)
        Background SAOD (PI)
        4-Band Timeseries (HI, SM)
    Ocean and Carbon
      AMIP Sea Surface
        SST and Sea Ice Concentration
      CO2 Emissions Fluxes
        Gridded Surface Fluxes

Technical Specifications Hierarchy

Within each forcing domain, technical specifications are organized hierarchically:

  1. Physical Overview: Description of scientific inputs, units, target grids, and UM STASH codes.
  2. Experiment Breakdown: Detailed task profiles sub-grouped by experiment:
    • Pre-Industrial (PI): Climatological or perpetual 1850 conditions.
    • Historical (HI): Continuous 1850–2023 transient historical forcings.
    • ScenarioMIP (SM): Future projection pathways (h, hl, m, vl), supporting standard 2022–2100 timelines and extended 2022–2150 timelines.
    • Emission-Driven (EH, ES): Carbon-cycle interactive flux forcings.
    • AMIP (AM): Prescribed boundary condition experiments.

Each task specification provides exhaustive coverage across the 9 technical dimensions, detailing CLI invocations, exact input4MIPs file locations on NCI Gadi, Python library call chains, Iris cube transformations and coordinate constraints, produced file paths, and downstream namelist mutations.

Suite Configuration & Controlling Switches

The execution of individual forcing pipelines, experiment tasks, and ScenarioMIP pathway extensions is governed centrally through switches defined in rose-suite.conf and site/nci-gadi/variables.cylc.

[!TIP] For an evergreen reference describing all suite configuration objects, types, schemas, and semantics without hardcoded current values, see the Suite Configuration & Parameters Reference.

Forcing Pipeline Master Activation Switch 2150 Extension Switch (SM) Downstream Git Sync
Greenhouse Gases (GHG) ANCIL_CREATE_GHG EXTEND_SM_GHG GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PUSH (Updates &clmchfcg)
Aerosols ANCIL_CREATE_AEROSOL EXTEND_SM_AEROSOL Filesystem Ancillary (.anc)
Carbon Dioxide Fluxes ANCIL_CREATE_CO2 EXTEND_SM_CO2 Filesystem Ancillary (.anc)
Nitrogen Deposition ANCIL_CREATE_NITROGEN EXTEND_SM_NITROGEN Filesystem Ancillary (.anc)
Ozone Pipeline ANCIL_CREATE_OZONE EXTEND_SM_OZONE Filesystem Ancillary (.anc)
Solar Irradiance ANCIL_CREATE_SOLAR EXTEND_SM_SOLAR GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PUSH (PI Namelist SC)
Volcanic Optical Depth ANCIL_CREATE_VOLCANIC EXTEND_SM_VOLCANIC GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PUSH (PI Namelist VOLCTS_val)
AMIP (SST & Sea Ice) ANCIL_CREATE_AMIP N/A Filesystem Ancillary (.anc)

Explore the individual forcing domain specifications below:

Forcing Domain Description Output Formats Member Tasks
Greenhouse Gases (GHG) Global-mean annual surface concentrations (9 species) Namelist &clmchfcg 6
Aerosols Gridded monthly emissions for BC, OC, Bio, and SO2/DMS Ancillary .anc 24
Carbon Dioxide Fluxes Gridded monthly CO2 surface emissions fluxes Ancillary .anc 5
Nitrogen Deposition Gridded monthly reactive nitrogen deposition Ancillary .anc 6
Ozone Pipeline Zonal-mean monthly 3D ozone concentrations Intermediate NetCDF + Ancillary .anc 14
Solar Irradiance Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) constant and timeseries Namelist SC + ASCII .dat 3
Volcanic Optical Depth Stratospheric Aerosol Optical Depth (SAOD) Namelist VOLCTS_val + ASCII .dat 3
AMIP (SST & Sea Ice) Monthly SST and sea-ice concentration Ancillary .anc 7
Configuration Git Sync Automated branching, committing, and pushing Git branches on access-esm1.6-configs 14