Can I change the climate model’s boundary conditions files?
Boundary conditions in the GISS GCM include topography, land coverage (continent distribution), ice sheets, vegetation, surface drag coefficient, and ocean energy characteristics. Oceans use either monthly specified sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea ice, or mixed-layer depths and ocean heat transports in the case of predicted “Qflux” runs. Many types of experiments require the user to alter the boundary conditions. Some of the best examples of this are paleoclimate experiments in which many geographic features of the Earth are altered (e.g., larger ice sheets, shifted continents, higher sea levels, etc.). Unfortunately, altering the boundary conditions and getting the GCM to run successfully with them can be a significant technological challenge. EdGCM includes some specific sets of boundary conditions for some common experiments (e.g. Last Glacial Maximum files for Ice Age experiments), but we cannot allow users to change the boundary condition files themselves at present. We ca
