An unprecedented set of high-resolution earth system simulations for understanding multiscale interactions in climate variability and change

A high-resolution configuration of the Community Earth System Model version 1.3 (CESM1.3) is used for the simulations with a nominal horizontal resolution of 0.25 degrees for the atmosphere and land models and 0.1 degrees for the ocean and sea-ice models.

At these resolutions, the model permits tropical cyclones and ocean mesoscale eddies, allowing interactions between these synoptic and mesoscale phenomena with large-scale circulations. An overview of the results from these simulations is provided with a focus on model drift, mean climate, internal modes of variability, representation of the historical and future climates, and extreme events. Comparisons are made to solutions from an identical set of simulations using the standard resolution (nominal 1 degrees) CESM1.3 and to available observations for the historical period to address some key scientific questions concerning the impact and benefit of increasing model horizontal resolution in climate simulations.