The ECBilt-Clio model is an 'intermediate-complexity', three-dimensional coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice
General Circulation Model.
The atmospheric component is the ECBilt model, a spectral T21 global three level quasi-geostrophic model.
The Clio model is a primitive equation, free-surface ocean general circulation model coupled to a
thermodynamic-dynamic sea-ice model. (more extensive description)
The version presently available is: Version: 3
Documentation for the ECBilt and Clio models is available.
Alternatively, one could consult the technical report for ECBilt.
A further development of the ECBilt/Clio model includes a vegetation model, an ice sheet model and a carbon cycle model
and is available as LOVECLIM.
LOVECLIM is an acronym made from the names of the five different models that have been coupled to built the Earth
system model
Download
You can download a 50 Mb gzipped file containing the source code of
the coupled model ECBILT/CLIO:
emic.tar.gz.
Installation instructions are included in the package and are available
online. The same applies to
the documentation of a 50 year reference run.
Please Cite Model Contributors
When you are using ECBILT-CLIO in scientific papers, you should quote that the
coupled model derives from the atmospheric model ECBILT (Opsteegh et al.
1998) and the ice-ocean model CLIO (Goosse and Fichefet, 1999) and that the
model is available at the web site http://www.knmi.nl/onderzk/CKO/ecbilt.html .
The references are:
Opsteegh, J.D., R.J. Haarsma, F.M. Selten and A. Kattenberg, 1998. ECBILT: A
dynamic alternative to mixed boundary conditions in ocean models. Tellus, 50A, 348-367
(PDF)
Goosse H. and T. Fichefet, 1999. Importance of ice-ocean interactions for
the global ocean circulation: a model study. Journal of Geophysical Research, 104(C10), 23337-23355.
(PDF)
A list of more papers on ECBILT/CLIO is also available.
Compare with previous versions and other models
The ECBILT-CLIO version 3 model differs in a number of respect from earlier versions.
Some of these differences are compiled on this
page.
A report with a comparison between ECBILT-CLIO version 3 and several state-of-the-art GCMs with respect to its response to a doubled CO2 concentration is available.
This version has been tested on a Linux PC with Portland Group Fortran compilers, an SGI Challenge computer, a Fujitsu VPP, a DEC Alpha, and a SunFire.
Postprocessing
ECBilt has its output in the netCDF format. For those who prefer the GrADS format to netCDF,
it is possible to transfer these data using the program cdf2grads for 2D data and cdf2grads_3D for 3D data.
A postprocessing utility
(128 kb) to convert CLIO output to NetCDF is also available for download.
Support
Support from KNMI for ECBILT-CLIO has ceased.
More information about the CLIO model is also available
here.
Disclaimer Statement
The ECBILT/CLIO coupled ocean-atmosphere model is made available on this web page for
climate research purposes.
With respect to documents available from this server, neither KNMI nor any of its
employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, including the warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, or assumes any legal liability
or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information,
product, or process disclosed.
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