CCSM2.0.1 General Documentation
Introduction
The CCSM2.0.1 coupled model, released on Oct 11, 2002, provides the community with a coupled model framework for carrying out climate simulations. Upgrades from CCSM2.0 release can be found in the Introduction section of the Users Guide.
Documentation
What is a "coupled model"?
CCSM coupled model is based on a framework which divides the complete climate system into component models connected by a coupler. This design requires four component models -- atmosphere, land, ocean, and sea-ice -- each connected to the coupler, and each exchanging data with the coupler only. From a software engineering point of view, the CCSM is not a particular climate model, but a framework for building and testing various climate models for various applications. In this sense, more than any particular component model, the coupler defines the high-level design of CCSM software.
CESM Project
The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is a fully-coupled, global climate model that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of the Earth's past, present, and future climate states.
CESM is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Administration of the CESM is maintained by the Climate and Global Dynamics Division (CGD) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).