PNNL

Abstract

The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project is an ongoing, state-of-the-science Earth system modeling, simulation, and prediction project developed by the US Department of Energy (DOE). With an emphasis on supporting the DOE’s energy mission, understanding and quantifying how well the model simulates water cycle processes is of particular importance. Here, we evaluate E3SM version 1.0 (v1.0) for its ability to represent atmospheric rivers (ARs), which play significant roles in water vapor transport and precipitation. The characteristics and precipitation associated with global ARs in E3SM at standard resolution (1 1) are compared to the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA2). Global patterns of AR frequencies in E3SM show high degrees of correlation ( 0:97) with MERRA2 and low mean absolute errors (MAEs;