DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13941966
title: Replication data for "Optimizing Topographic Boundary Conditions for East Pacific Climate Simulation"

description: This repository contains output from the atmosphere-only and atmosphere-ocean coupled ModelE version 2.1 (hereafter E2.1) simulations used in the related study (Meegan-Kumar et al. 2025, "Optimizing Topographic Boundary Conditions for East Pacific Climate Simulation" Journal of Climate). Also included are earth observations used to evaluate the model output biases.

The purpose of these experiments were to test the influence of orographic blocking in Central and South America on model biases in the eastern Pacific. The purpose of the observations is to calculate GCM biases. Details for the methods used to create this data can be found in the related publication linked below. The data is in netCDF format, with dimensions latitude, longitude, and (in most cases) time. Due to storage limitations, the diagnostics included here are only those that support the analyses included in the related paper. For other diagnostics from these experiments please contact the data authors.

Experiments/File categories:

For the E2.1 experiments, the file name indicates the data source (observations or the E2.1 model with a fully-coupled atmosphere-ocean or run in atmosphere-only mode), interpolation method of model topography (nth-percentile, n-sigma envelope, control, grid-cell maximum), region over which modified topography was applied (ca-only for Central America, ca-sa for Central and South America, or global), and the diagnostic (labels correspond to the file names; the variables within the files follow the specific model conventions):

<data_source>.<topography_scheme>.<modified_region>.<diagnostic>.nc

data source:



agcm = E2.1 GCM atmosphere-only with prescribed sea surface temperatures

aogcm = E2.1 GCM with fully-coupled atmosphere-ocean


topography scheme:



ctrl = model topography reflects grid-cell average of observations (standard method)

80p = model topography reflects 80th percentile of observations

85p = model topography reflects 85th percentile of observations

1sEnv = model topography reflects envelope scheme with 1sigma variance of observations

1pt5sEnv = model topography reflects envelope scheme with 1.5sigma variance of observations

max = model topography reflects grid-cell maximum value of observations


modified region:



ca-only = only over Central America

ca-sa = Central and South America

global = globally


Diagnostics (Note: these labels correspond to the file names; the variables within the files follow the specific model conventions.):



zsurf = surface height

h = geopotential height

sst = sea surface temperature

u = eastward wind component

v = northward wind component

u_current = eastward component of 16m ocean current

w = omega

toa_swcrf = top of atmosphere shortwave cloud radiative forcing

low_cloud = percent fraction low clouds

q = specific humidity

lhflx = latent heat flux

taux = eastward surface wind stress

tauy = northward surface wind stress

nt_Heat_Atl = northward heat transport in the Atlantic basin

sf_Atl = streamfunction in the Atlantic 

prec = precipitation

vimfc = vertically integrated moisture flux convergence