CCSM Community Land Model (CLM) Input Data

The Community Land Model is the land model for the Community Climate System
Model (CCSM) and the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM). It is a collaborative
project between scientists in the Terrestrial Sciences Section (TSS) and the
Climate and Global Dynamics Division (CGD) at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the CCSM Land Model Working Group. Other
principal working groups that also contribute to the CLM are Biogeochemistry,
Paleoclimate, and Climate Change and Assessment. The model formalizes and
quantifies concepts of ecological climatology. Ecological climatology is an
interdisciplinary framework to understand how natural and human changes in
vegetation affect climate. It examines the physical, chemical, and biological
processes by which terrestrial ecosystems affect and are affected by climate
across a variety of spatial and temporal scales. The central theme is that
terrestrial ecosystems, through their cycling of energy, water, chemical
elements, and trace gases, are important determinants of climate. Model
components consist of: biogeophysics, hydrologic cycle, biogeochemistry and
dynamic vegetation. Surface data sets: The land surface is represented by 5
primary sub-grid land cover types (glacier, lake, wetland, urban, vegetated) in
each grid cell. The vegetated portion of a grid cell is further divided into
patches of plant functional types, each with its own leaf and stem area index
and canopy height. Each subgrid land cover type and PFT patch is a separate
column for energy and water calculations. The current version of the Community
Land Model is CLM3.

The input model data consists of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) and non-IPCC data for:
- non-IPCC constant 1990 control runs
- non-IPCC increasing CO2 scenarios
- IPCC constant 1870 control runs