Climates of deep time, i.e. tens to hundreds of millions of years ago provide a unique opportunity to understand Earth's climate processes in an integrated fashion. The climates of these time periods include warm hothouse and cold icehouse climate regimes. Climate models are currently being applied to study how these climates are maintained and how the climate system changes through geologic time. A unique challenge for integrating the climate deep time simulations is that many geoscientists, interested in these simulations, are not climate modelers. This grant supports a deep time liaison position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to aid the deep time community in simulating climates of the deep past. The liaison will work with university faculty who need support to carry out pre-quaternary climate simulations with the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). The specific tasks of the liaison will include: collaborations with university investigators to develop tools and documentation to facilitate the setting up of deep time CCSM climate simulations, the carrying out of deep time CCSM simulations on NCAR supercomputers, the facilitation of archiving model output and supporting a web based system to make output available to the university community, the transfer of deep time model simulation output to the university community, the diagnosis of CCSM deep time climate simulations using diagnostic tools, and the sponsoring of training workshop to the community at large on deep time climate modeling. The availability of the liaison services for the user community will be made known through the CCSM Paleoclimate Working Group, national meetings, and workshops focused on specific deep time events.
The Community Climate System Model (CCSM) Deep Time paleoclimate working group liaison has served the needs of the deep time community. The major task of the liaison was to help scientists to configure the CCSM for deep time research. This involved teaching scientists how to change paleo- geography, topography and bathymetry, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and solar forcing factors. The liaison also helped scientists with optimizing the CCSM to run efficiently on various computer platforms. In some cases, the liaison configured the model for the scientists and carried out the model simulations. The liaison then provided the selected model output to the researcher. The liaison also participated in tutorials and conferences to connect users to the CCSM paleoclimate activities. Finally, the liaison co-authored a number of publications that employed the CCSM for deep time research. Over the extent of the funded research, over twenty university users have benefited from the liaisons expertise. The paleoclimate deep time liaison also participated in the CCSM annual tutorial in terms of teaching graduate students how to use the CCSM for their research in paleoclimate. In order to reach even more paleoclimate researchers, the deep time liaison co-authored an NCAR Technical Note on how to use the CCSM for deep time climate research. This users guide will be an invaluable resource for those who want to modify the CCSM for their paleoclimate research.
