MPAS-Ocean and MPAS-Seaice meshes



Short name

Long name

Vertical
levels

E3SM
version

Bathymetry

Description

Pull Request

Short name

Long name

Vertical
levels

E3SM
version

Bathymetry

Description

Pull Request

ECwISC30to60E3r2

ECwISC30to60kmL64E3SMv3r2

64

v2

GEBCO 2023 + Bedmachine v3

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh with ice-shelf cavities

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/compass/pull/689

Short name

Long name

Vertical
levels

E3SM
version

Bathymetry

Description

Pull Request

ECwISC30to60E2r1

ECwISC30to60kmL60E3SMv2r01

60

v2

GEBCO + Bedmachine

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh with ice-shelf cavities

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/compass/pull/15

EC30to60E2r2

EC30to60kmL60E3SMv2r02

60

v2

ETOPO2

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/MPAS-Model/pull/668

EC15to60E2r4

EC15to60kmL60E3SMv2r04

60

v2

GEBCO + Bedmachine

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh with 15 km resolution in the North Atlantic around Greenland

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/MPAS-Model/pull/740

SOwISC12to60E2r4

SOwISC12to60kmL60E3SMv2r4

60

v2

GEBCO + Bedmachine

MPAS Southern Ocean Regionally Refined Mesh (SORRM) with 12 km resolution around Antarctica and ice-shelf cavities

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/compass/pull/37

WC14to60E2r3

WC14to60kmL60E3SMv2r03

60

v2

ETOPO2

MPAS North America and Arctic Focused Water Cycle mesh, with a focused 14-km resolution around North America

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/MPAS-Model/pull/628

WCAtl12to45E2r4

WCAlt12to60kmL60E3SMv2r04

60

v2

GEBCO + Bedmachine

MPAS North America and Arctic Focused Water Cycle mesh, with a focused 14-km resolution around North America and 12-km resolution in the Southern Atlantic

https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/compass/pull/60

Short name

Long name



E3SM
version



Description

Pull Request

oQU240

N/A

60

v1

ETOPO2

Quas-uniform 240 km resolution



oQU240wLI

N/A

60

v1

ETOPO2 + Bedmap2

Quas-uniform 240 km resolution with ice-shelf cavities



oQU120

N/A

60

v1

ETOPO2

Quas-uniform 120 km resolution with 60 vertical levels



oEC60to30

N/A

100

v1

ETOPO2

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh



oEC60to30v3

N/A

60

v1

ETOPO2

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh



oEC60to30wLI

N/A

100

v1

ETOPO2 + Bedmap2

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh with ice-shelf cavities



oEC60to30v3wLI

N/A

60

v1

ETOPO2 + Bedmap2

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh with ice-shelf cavities



ECwISC30to60E1r2

ECwISC30to60kmL60E3SMv1r02

60

v1

GEBCO + Bedmachine

MPAS Eddy Closure ("low res") mesh with ice-shelf cavities



oRRS30to10

N/A

100

v1

ETOPO2

MPAS Rossby Radius Scaled ("mid res") mesh with 10 km resolution at the poles, 30 km at the equator



oRRS30to10v3

N/A

80

v1

ETOPO2

MPAS Rossby Radius Scaled ("mid res") mesh with 10 km resolution at the poles, 30 km at the equator



oRRS30to10wLI

N/A

100

v1

ETOPO2 + Bedmap2

v1MPAS Rossby Radius Scaled ("mid res") mesh with 10 km resolution at the poles, 30 km at the equator and ice-shelf cavities



oRRS30to10v3wLI

N/A

80

v1

ETOPO2 + Bedmap2

v1MPAS Rossby Radius Scaled ("mid res") mesh with 10 km resolution at the poles, 30 km at the equator and ice-shelf cavities



oRRS18to6

N/A

100

v1

ETOPO2

MPAS Rossby Radius Scaled ("high res") mesh with 6 km resolution at the poles, 18 km at the equator



oRRS18to6v3

N/A

80

v1

ETOPO2

MPAS Rossby Radius Scaled ("high res") mesh with 6 km resolution at the poles, 18 km at the equator



oARRM60to10

N/A

80

v1

ETOPO2

Arctic Regionally Refined Mesh (ARRM) with 10 km resolution in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, Nordic Seas, Barents-Kara Seas, and Arctic Ocean, transitioning to 60to30 km resolution elsewhere and in the Southern Hemisphere



oARRM60to6

N/A

80

v1

ETOPO2

Arctic Regionally Refined Mesh (ARRM) with 6 km resolution in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, Nordic Seas, Barents-Kara Seas, and Arctic Ocean, transitioning to 60to30 km resolution elsewhere and in the Southern Hemisphere.



Note: Strike-through indicates that the mesh is not supported in E3SM v2.

Mesh names in E3SM v1

For E3SM v1, there were 3 generations of ocean meshes. Each started with "o" (e.g. oEC60to30). The first generation didn't have a suffix and the second generation was not ever used in E3SM. The third generation ended up with the truly terrible suffix v3.  Meshes that are no longer supported in E3SM are indicated with strikethrough.

Mesh names in E3SM v2 and later

Following E3SM v1, it quickly became apparent that the ocean mesh names were not useful and the naming convention would be very confusing for subsequent E3SM versions. We had a very lengthy discussion:
https://github.com/MPAS-Dev/MPAS-Model/pull/507
in which we landed on a short and a long name for each mesh.

We dropped the "o" prefix because these meshes are used for both ocean and sea-ice. We now always put the finer resolution before the coarser, we use wISC (with ice-shelf cavities) rather than wLI (with lance ice), and we append both the E3SM version (e.g. E2) and a revision number (e.g. r2). The revision number may get updated for a variety of reasons: including or excluding ice-shelf cavities; changing bathymetry; changing the initial condition; changing the vertical grid; etc.