CLM | Component Family | Essential Model Documentation

What is this? CLM is an component family developed by National Centre for Atmospheric Science , first established in 1996. It covers the Land Surface and Subsurface, Ocean Biogeochemistry domains of Earth system science. The best-known member of this family is CLM4.

Scientific Domains (2)

Land Surface and Subsurface land-surface

Ocean Biogeochemistry ocean-biogeochemistry

Description

Community Land Model family representing land surface heterogeneity through nested subgrid hierarchy.

Evolution & History

Evolution from simple land surface to comprehensive terrestrial system models through CLM1-CLM5.

Scientific Basis

Nested subgrid representation, area-weighted averaging for atmosphere-land coupling.

Institutions

National Centre for Atmospheric Science Primary

NCAS

Leeds, United Kingdom · Europe

Est. 2002 ROR ↗

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Collaborative

LBL

Berkeley, United States

Est. 1931 ROR ↗

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Collaborative

PNNL

Richland, United States

Est. 1965 ROR ↗

Scientific & Technical Characteristics

⚙️ Computational Requirements

10-25% of total coupled model cost

📐 Variation Dimensions

Version complexity, soil layers, vegetation representation, biogeochemical complexity.

📦 Software Dependencies

NetCDF, MPI, ESMF/MCT

📄 Documentation

escomp.github.io/ctsm-docs/

Code & Development

Source Code Repository

github.com/ESCOMP/CTSM

Shared Code Base

Nested subgrid hierarchy architecture with independent biogeophysical processes per landunit/column/PFT.

Programming Languages

Fortran 90Fortran 95Python

License

Open Source

References (1)

REF013 →

Technical Details

Resource Identifier (@id)

clm

Validation Key

CLM

JSON-LD Context

Resource Types

emdwcrp:model_familyesgvoc:ModelFamily