The Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin - delivering global high-quality climate information at scales that matter to society

The DestinE Digital Twin for Climate Change Adaptation (Climate DT) supports adaptation activities through the provision of innovative climate information on multi-decadal timescales, at scales at which the impacts of climate change are observed. This initiative presents the first ever attempt to operationalise the production of global multi-decadal climate projections at km-scale resolutions of 5 to 10km, leveraging the world-leading supercomputing facilities of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking along with some of the leading European climate models. It also enables performing bespoke simulations to assess the impacts of new scenarios or of extreme events in a rapidly warming world and inform adaptation activities.

Simulations

The table below provides an overview of available and planned simulations. Data access instructions can be found after the table.

control simulation: repetitive 1990 forcing with no change in forcing over time. This simulation allows to quantify model drift and simulated inter-annual variability and provides relevant context for interpreting historical and scenario simulations.

historical simulation: starting in 1990, the forcing follows observed changes in greenhouse gases, aerosols etc. until 2020. The simulations are using standardised CMIP6 forcing. Historical simulations are essential for model evaluation and quality control as they allow a comparison to observations.

future projection: to project how climate will change on a global and local scale in the future, forcing changes according to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 3-7.0 scenario from ScenarioMIP. The SSP3-7.0 scenario explores a future with a continuous increase in CO2 emissions with no strong mitigation efforts. In phase 1, all DestinE simulations follow this scenario. In the future, alternative future scenarios will be explored.

storyline simulations: storyline simulations offer a what-if capability to explore how a weather event we experienced in the recent past would change in a warmer climate. The simulations also allow attribution of weather events to climate change by comparing present-day with pre-industrial storyline simulations of the same event. To constrain simulated weather events, a nudging approach is used to keep the simulated large-scale flow close to ERA5 for the period 2017 – 2023. Processes on smaller scales and thermodynamic processes are free to evolve, which allows scientists to study e.g. how extreme precipitation would change in a warmer world for a weather event observed in present-day conditions. Initial conditions are taken from ocean-only spinup simulations for 1950 and 2017, and from the IFS-FESOM projection for a +2 °C world. Storyline simulations will be updated regularly to include most recent months. The next update will extend all storylines to include 2024.

spinup strategy: for coupled climate simulations, it is essential to bring the ocean close to an equilibrated state before launching the coupled simulation. For the historical simulations, the ocean models are initialised from a reanalysis in 1985, and then forced by ERA5 for 5 years. In 1990, a coupled 2-year spinup with perpetual 1990 forcing starts from the ocean-only spinup to reduce the coupling shock. This coupled spinup is then used to provide the initial conditions for the historical simulations starting in 1990. For the scenario simulations, the ocean-only spinup is running from 2015 – 2019 with ERA5 forcing and is directly initialising the coupled future projection with no coupled spinup. The Climate DT will continue to explore and improve spinup strategies in the future and run scenario projections as a direct continuation of the historical simulations.

Type of simulation	Model	resolution atmosphere	resolution ocean	planned	data bridge availability
control (HighResMIP/control)	IFS-NEMO	10 km	1/12°	10 – 30 years	not yet available
	ICON	10 km	5 km	10 – 30 years	not yet available
	IFS-FESOM	10 km	5 km	10 – 30 years	not yet available
historical (CMIP6/hist)	IFS-NEMO	10 km	1/12°	1990 – 2019	01/1990 – 12/1996
	ICON	10 km	5 km	1990 – 2019	03/1991 – 12/2012
	IFS-FESOM	10 km	5 km	1990 – 2019	not yet available
future projection (ScenarioMIP/SSP3-7.0)	IFS-NEMO	5 km	1/12°	2020 – 2039	02/2020 – 12/2039
	ICON	5 km	5 km	2020 – 2039	09/2020 – 09/2033
	IFS-FESOM	5 km	5 km	2020 – 2039	not yet available
	IFS-FESOM	10 km	5 km	2020 – 2049	not yet available
storyline control (story-nudging/control)	IFS-FESOM	10 km	5 km	2017 – 2023	01/2017 – 12/2023
storyline present-day (story-nudging/hist)	IFS-FESOM	10 km	5 km	2017 – 2023	01/2017 – 12/2023
storyline +2 °C (story-nudging/Tplus2.0K)	IFS-FESOM	10 km	5 km	2017 – 2023	01/2017 – 12/2023

Note that data availability on the data bridge may lag simulation status due to quality control before upload from Euro HPC to the data bridge.

Data availability

Model output can be retrieved using the polytope service via the DestinE Service Platform, with examples on usage here.

Data is provided on a HEALPIX grid for both models.

Data is provided on various levtype values, for different parameters. See the expandable tree below or the DestinE ClimateDT Parameters page for more information.
The levtype values are as follows:

hl : Height level field. The key levelist is used to specify the level in metres (e.g. 100). For parameters at height > 10m.
o2d : 2D ocean field. Note that this can be the ocean surface, or other 2D levels such as at 2 metres or total column integrations.
o3d : 3D ocean field. The key levelist is used to specify the index of the level. Technical details of these levels can be found here for ICON and here for IFS-NEMO.
pl : Pressure level field. The key levelist is used to specify the level in hPa (e.g. 1000).
sfc : 2D atmospheric surface field. Note that this can be the earth surface, or other 2D levels such as at 2 metres or total column integrations
sol : 3D multi-level model field. This encompasses fields from soil, sea-ice and snow model which use multi-layer schemes. The key levelist is used to specify the index of the level.

For example, retrieve future projection (SSP3-7.0) data, parameters "Surface pressure" (param 134) and "2 metre temperature" (param 167), on 2nd January 2020 at times 0000 to 0600 every hour:

request = {
    'class': 'd1',
    'dataset': 'climate-dt',
    'activity': 'ScenarioMIP',
    'experiment': 'SSP3-7.0',
    'expver': '0001',
    'model': 'IFS-NEMO', 
    'generation': '1',
    'realization': '1',
    'resolution': 'high', 
    'date': '20200102',
    'time': '0000/0100/0200/0300/0400/0500/0600',
    'stream': 'clte',
    'type': 'fc',
    'levtype': 'sfc',
    'param': '134/167'
}

Modifying the request can then be performed based on the following structure of the available data (click the tree to unfold additional sections):

263000 (Time-mean sea ice thickness [m])
263001 (Time-mean sea ice area fraction [Fraction])
263003 (Time-mean eastward sea ice velocity [m s-1])
263004 (Time-mean northward sea ice velocity [m s-1])
263009 (Time-mean snow volume over sea ice per unit area [m3 m-2])
263114 (Time-mean ocean mixed layer depth defined by sigma theta 0.03 kg m-3 [m])
263124 (Time-mean sea surface height [m])

263500 (Time-mean sea water practical salinity [g kg-1])
263501 (Time-mean sea water potential temperature [K])
263505 (Time-mean northward sea water velocity [m s-1])
263506 (Time-mean eastward sea water velocity [m s-1])
263507 (Time-mean upward sea water velocity [m s-1])

129 (Geopotential [m2 s-2])
130 (Temperature [K])
131 (U component of wind [m s-1])
132 (V component of wind [m s-1])
133 (Specific humidity [kg kg-1])
135 (Vertical velocity [Pa s-1])
157 (Relative humidity [%])
246 (Specific cloud liquid water content [kg kg-1])

78 (Total column cloud liquid water [kg m-2])
79 (Total column cloud ice water [kg m-2])
130 (Temperature [K])
134 (Surface pressure [Pa])
137 (Total column vertically-integrated water vapour [kg m-2])
151 (Mean sea level pressure [Pa])
165 (10 metre U wind component [m s-1])
166 (10 metre V wind component [m s-1])
167 (2 metre temperature [K])
168 (2 metre dewpoint temperature [K])
235 (Skin temperature [K])
228164 (Total Cloud Cover [%])
260048 (Total precipitation rate [kg m-2 s-1])
146 (Surface sensible heat flux [J m-2])
147 (Surface latent heat flux [J m-2])
169 (Surface short-wave (solar) radiation downwards [J m-2])
175 (Surface long-wave (thermal) radiation downwards [J m-2])
176 (Surface net short-wave (solar) radiation [J m-2])
177 (Surface net long-wave (thermal) radiation [J m-2])
178 (Top net short-wave (solar) radiation [J m-2])
179 (Top net long-wave (thermal) radiation [J m-2])
260654 (Time-integrated eastward turbulent surface stress due to surface roughness [N m-2 s])
260655 (Time-integrated northward turbulent surface stress due to surface roughness [N m-2 s])

228246 (100 metre U wind component [m s-1])
228247 (100 metre V wind component [m s-1])

263000 (Time-mean sea ice thickness [m])
263001 (Time-mean sea ice area fraction [Fraction])
263003 (Time-mean eastward sea ice velocity [m s-1])
263004 (Time-mean northward sea ice velocity [m s-1])
263008 (Time-mean sea ice volume per unit area [m3 m-2])
263009 (Time-mean snow volume over sea ice per unit area [m3 m-2])
263021 (Time-mean X-component of sea ice velocity [m s-1])
263022 (Time-mean Y-component of sea ice velocity [m s-1])
263100 (Time-mean sea surface practical salinity [g kg-1])
263101 (Time-mean sea surface temperature [K])
263121 (Time-mean vertically-integrated heat content in the upper 300 m [J m-2])
263122 (Time-mean vertically-integrated heat content in the upper 700 m [J m-2])
263124 (Time-mean sea surface height [m])

263500 (Time-mean sea water practical salinity [g kg-1])
263501 (Time-mean sea water potential temperature [K])
263505 (Time-mean northward sea water velocity [m s-1])
263506 (Time-mean eastward sea water velocity [m s-1])
263507 (Time-mean upward sea water velocity [m s-1])

60 (Potential vorticity [K m-2 kg-1 s-1])
129 (Geopotential [m2 s-2])
130 (Temperature [K])
131 (U component of wind [m s-1])
132 (V component of wind [m s-1])
133 (Specific humidity [kg kg-1])
135 (Vertical velocity [Pa s-1])
157 (Relative humidity [%])
246 (Specific cloud liquid water content [kg kg-1])

78 (Total column cloud liquid water [kg m-2])
79 (Total column cloud ice water [kg m-2])
134 (Surface pressure [Pa])
137 (Total column vertically-integrated water vapour [kg m-2])
141 (Snow depth [m of water equivalent])
148 (Charnock [Numeric])
151 (Mean sea level pressure [Pa])
159 (Boundary layer height [m])
164 (Total cloud cover [(0 - 1)])
165 (10 metre U wind component [m s-1])
166 (10 metre V wind component [m s-1])
167 (2 metre temperature [K])
168 (2 metre dewpoint temperature [K])
186 (Low cloud cover [(0 - 1)])
187 (Medium cloud cover [(0 - 1)])
188 (High cloud cover [(0 - 1)])
235 (Skin temperature [K])
260048 (Total precipitation rate [kg m-2 s-1])
8 (Surface runoff [m])
9 (Sub-surface runoff [m])
144 (Snowfall [m of water equivalent])
146 (Surface sensible heat flux [J m-2])
147 (Surface latent heat flux [J m-2])
169 (Surface short-wave (solar) radiation downwards [J m-2])
175 (Surface long-wave (thermal) radiation downwards [J m-2])
176 (Surface net short-wave (solar) radiation [J m-2])
177 (Surface net long-wave (thermal) radiation [J m-2])
178 (Top net short-wave (solar) radiation [J m-2])
179 (Top net long-wave (thermal) radiation [J m-2])
180 (Time-integrated eastward turbulent surface stress [N m-2 s])
181 (Time-integrated northward turbulent surface stress [N m-2 s])
182 (Evaporation [m of water equivalent])
212 (TOA incident short-wave (solar) radiation [J m-2])
228 (Total precipitation [m])

129 (Geopotential [m2 s-2])
172 (Land-sea mask [(0 - 1)])

228141 (Snow depth water equivalent [kg m-2])