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Experiment Naming & Configuration Alignment

This page provides a definitive bidirectional mapping between the experiment naming conventions used in CMIP7-Input and access-esm1.6-configs. It serves as a Rosetta Stone for workflow developers, model operators, and domain scientists who work across both repositories.

Architectural Roles

The two repositories address different stages of the forcing pipeline:

Dimension CMIP7-Input access-esm1.6-configs
Role Producer — generates ancillary files, ASCII boundary conditions, and namelist patches from raw input4MIPs data Consumer — integrates the generated artifacts into versioned model configurations
Tooling Cylc 8, Iris, ANTS, Mule, xarray Payu, CABLE, UM, MOM5, CICE4
Naming Focus Cylc suite acronyms and task IDs (e.g. HI_ancil_ghg) Git branch names (e.g. dev-historical+concentrations)

The automated Configuration Git Synchronization pipeline bridges the two: Cylc tasks clone an access-esm1.6-configs branch, patch namelists, and optionally push a new gen-* branch.

CMIP7-Input Naming Convention

Suite Acronyms

All workflow task names are prefixed with a two-letter experiment acronym defined in rose-suite.conf via the EXPS list:

Acronym WCRP Experiment ID Description
PI piControl Pre-industrial control — perpetual 1850 equilibrium
HI historical Historical transient — 1850–2023
SM ScenarioMIP Future projections (scen7-h, scen7-hl, scen7-m, scen7-vl)
AM amip Atmospheric Model Intercomparison — prescribed SST & sea ice
EH esm-hist Emission-driven historical — interactive carbon cycle
ES esm-ssp* Emission-driven ScenarioMIP — interactive carbon cycle
PM pmip Paleoclimate / PMIP — climatological equilibrium ozone

Task Identifier Syntax

Task names follow the pattern:

{EXP}[_{SCEN}]_ancil_{forcing}

Examples:

  • HI_ancil_ghg — Historical greenhouse gas namelist generation
  • SM_h_ancil_aerosol_BC — ScenarioMIP high-tier black carbon aerosol ancillary
  • AM_sst_ancil_amip — AMIP sea surface temperature ancillary

Scenario Extensions

ScenarioMIP tasks use the USE_SCEN dictionary to select among four Fast Track tiers:

Scenario Key CMIP7 Tier Standard Range Extended Range (--ext)
h High 2022–2100 2022–2150
hl High-Low 2022–2100 2022–2150
m Medium 2022–2100 2022–2150
vl Very Low 2022–2100 2022–2150

access-esm1.6-configs Naming Convention

Branch Taxonomy

Branch names in access-esm1.6-configs follow the scheme:

{prefix}-{scenario}[+{modifier}]

Prefixes:

Prefix Purpose
release- Tested, versioned, official community release configurations
dev- Active development configurations under continuous integration
gen- Automatically generated downstream branches pushed by CMIP7-Input Cylc tasks
test- Ad-hoc scientific benchmarking and test configurations

Scenario Tokens:

Token Description
preindustrial 1850 perpetual equilibrium control run
historical 1850–2023 transient historical simulation
amip Atmospheric Model Intercomparison with observed SSTs and sea ice
1pctCO2 1% compound annual increase in atmospheric CO₂
4xCO2 Abrupt 4× pre-industrial CO₂ quadrupling
flat10 Idealized constant-forcing benchmark
scen7-h, scen7-hl, scen7-m, scen7-vl ScenarioMIP Fast Track projection tiers

Modifier Tokens:

Modifier Description
+concentrations Prescribed atmospheric GHG concentrations
+emissions Interactive carbon-cycle emissions (prescribed fluxes)
+CN Active terrestrial Carbon-Nitrogen (and Phosphorus) nutrient dynamics
-bgc Biogeochemically coupled carbon (radiation sees constant CO₂)
-rad Radiatively coupled carbon (biogeochemistry sees constant CO₂)
+noLUC Runs holding land-use change static at 1850

Master Alignment Matrix

The following table maps every CMIP7-Input experiment to its corresponding access-esm1.6-configs branches. The Suite Variables column shows how the branch name is constructed from rose-suite.conf parameters. See the Suite Configuration & Parameters Reference for full object declarations.

CMIP7-Input Acronym WCRP Experiment ID Base Branch (dev-*) Suite Variables Generated Branch (gen-*) Forcing Mode
PI piControl dev-preindustrial+concentrations GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE['PI']-GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['PI'] = dev-piControl gen-piControl-${UNIQUE_NAME} Prescribed Concentrations
HI historical dev-historical+concentrations GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE['HI']-GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['HI'] = dev-historical gen-historical-${UNIQUE_NAME} Prescribed Concentrations
SM (h) scen7-h pl-scen7-h GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE['SM']-GIT_SM_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['h'] = pl-scen7-h gen-scen7-h-${UNIQUE_NAME} Prescribed Concentrations
SM (hl) scen7-hl pl-scen7-hl GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE['SM']-GIT_SM_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['hl'] = pl-scen7-hl gen-scen7-hl-${UNIQUE_NAME} Prescribed Concentrations
SM (m) scen7-m pl-scen7-m GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE['SM']-GIT_SM_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['m'] = pl-scen7-m gen-scen7-m-${UNIQUE_NAME} Prescribed Concentrations
SM (vl) scen7-vl pl-scen7-vl GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE['SM']-GIT_SM_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['vl'] = pl-scen7-vl gen-scen7-vl-${UNIQUE_NAME} Prescribed Concentrations
AM amip dev-amip N/A (filesystem ancillaries) N/A Prescribed Boundary Conditions
EH esm-hist dev-historical+emissions N/A (filesystem ancillaries) N/A Emission-driven Fluxes
ES esm-ssp* dev-scen7-{scen}+emissions N/A (filesystem ancillaries) N/A Emission-driven Fluxes
PM pmip dev-preindustrial+concentrations N/A (filesystem ancillaries) N/A Climatological Equilibrium

Key Nuances and Discrepancies

preindustrial vs. piControl

The two repositories use different names for the same concept:

  • access-esm1.6-configs uses preindustrial in branch names (e.g. dev-preindustrial+concentrations) for readability and consistency with its existing branch taxonomy.
  • CMIP7-Input uses piControl (the official WCRP CMIP Controlled Vocabulary identifier) in its GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['PI'] and task naming.

Consequently, the Cylc clone command constructs the base branch as dev-piControl, which currently maps to the dev-preindustrial+concentrations branch. The GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF value determines the clone target and the generated branch prefix:

# Clone the base branch (currently dev-piControl)
git clone -b ${GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE["PI"]}-${GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF["PI"]} ...

# Create the generated branch
git checkout -b gen-${GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF["PI"]}-${UNIQUE_NAME}

Note

The actual base branch cloned depends on the current value of GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF['PI'] in rose-suite.conf. The mapping between the suite variable value and the access-esm1.6-configs branch name may evolve as the branch taxonomy is finalized.

Concentration vs. Emission Delineation

The distinction between concentration-driven and emission-driven experiments is encoded differently in each repository:

  • In access-esm1.6-configs: The modifier +concentrations vs. +emissions appended to the base scenario name controls whether CABLE and the UM couple carbon interactively. Both variants share the same scenario root (e.g. dev-historical+concentrations vs. dev-historical+emissions).
  • In CMIP7-Input: This distinction is codified as completely separate experiment suites. HI and PI produce concentration tables and prescribed GHG namelists, while EH and ES execute the co2.cmip7_EH_CO2_interpolate pipeline to produce spatially gridded emission flux ancillaries. The two paths never share task IDs.

ScenarioMIP Fast Track Tiers

CMIP7 introduces a new scenario naming scheme that replaces the CMIP6 SSP nomenclature:

CMIP7 Scenario Tier Description Closest CMIP6 Analogue
scen7-h High SSP5-8.5
scen7-hl High-Low (overshoot) SSP5-3.4-OS
scen7-m Medium SSP2-4.5
scen7-vl Very Low SSP1-2.6

Both repositories use the scen7-{tier} token consistently for these scenarios. In CMIP7-Input, scenarios are iterated via the USE_SCEN dictionary; in access-esm1.6-configs, each tier has its own branch (e.g. dev-scen7-h, pl-scen7-h).

Git Synchronization Flow

The diagram below illustrates how Cylc tasks in CMIP7-Input construct and push downstream branches into access-esm1.6-configs:

sequenceDiagram participant Suite as CMIP7-Input Cylc Suite participant RSC as rose-suite.conf participant GitHub as access-esm1.6-configs (GitHub) participant Work as Suite Work Directory Suite->>RSC: Read GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PRE[EXP],<br>GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_SUF[EXP] Suite->>GitHub: git clone -b {PRE}-{SUF}<br>(e.g. dev-historical) GitHub->>Work: Clone into CYLC_WORKFLOW_SHARE_DIR Suite->>Work: git checkout -b gen-{SUF}-${UNIQUE_NAME}<br>(e.g. gen-historical-39dc7564) Suite->>Work: Run ancillary/namelist generators<br>(e.g. HI_ancil_ghg) Work->>Work: Patch atmosphere/namelists Suite->>Work: git add & commit alt GIT_CONFIG_BRANCH_PUSH is true Suite->>GitHub: git push origin gen-{SUF}-${UNIQUE_NAME} end

For full details on each experiment's Git lifecycle tasks, see the Configuration Git Synchronization page.