Customizing Output

If you don’t add anything to the namelist, CESM will generate its default output This is the output you got in the previous chapters exercises of this tutorial. By default, CESM components typically write monthly mean history files, along with a predefined set of variables. Some components may also produce additional output at higher temporal frequencies.

Depending on your scientific goals, you may wish to customize the model output. Common modifications include:

• Changing the output frequency (for example, from monthly to daily or hourly).

• Creating additional history files with different output frequencies.

• Adding variables that are not included in the default output.

• Reducing the number of output variables to save disk space.

In this chapter Customizing output, we cover how to output variables at a different frequency, add history files, or add variables to the history files.

In particular, we provide the basics of customizing the output for the different components (atm, lnd, ice, and mom). The section on customizing CAM output is the most comprehensive and introduces many of the concepts that are common across CESM components. We therefore recommend reviewing that section first, even if your primary interest is another component model.