Dear all,

If you are not interested in ACCESS you can stop reading now.

This e-mail is to advise the community that an ACCESS Oversight Committee has been formed initially comprising Christian Jakob, Rachel Law, Helen Cleugh, Andy Pitman, Tony Hirst, Peter May, David Karoly and Ben Evans. We have terms of reference agreed by the group (see at the end of this message).

It is important to note that this committee is not formed with the authority to dictate directions or decisions for ACCESS. The committee aims to provide a forum to share information, raise issues around ACCESS development and improve coordination around ACCESS.

The committee plans to meet monthly. We aim to distribute to you all the outcomes of discussions via e-mail. This would include updates on work being undertaken, issues arising, notification of events and so forth. Of relevance to many of you is that the committee does not replace existing coordinated initiatives such as those around COSIMA or CABLE. We are very much focussed on ACCESS across its various applications.

The good news is that there are some updates to advise you of:

  • ACCESS-CM2 historical and 4xCO2 runs have been completed under CSIRO’s leadership. ACCESS-ESM1.5 historical runs are being re-done due to a land-use bug (likely small carbon impacts but climate OK)
    • A global 12 km NWP version of ACCESS is operational. Predictions are a significant improvement on earlier versions. 10-day forecasts take 1 hour to run on 10000 cores. Ensembles with lower resolution are also looking good with similar overall computer needs.
    • Advice received suggests that the UK MetOffice is about to go live with updated physics. UK MetOffice plans for the next generation model (LFRic) indicate a 2025 delivery for NWP, and after CMIP7 for climate.
    • For the land surface, progress is being made on  JaC (JULES and CABLE) – we are working through the UK MetOffice ticketing process to get CABLE accepted into the JULES/UM trunk with the aim of enabling users of ACCESS to easily switch between JULES and CABLE.

The committee also noted the need for formal releases of ACCESS-CM2 and ACCESS-ESM1.5 focussed on the CMIP6 finalised versions. Further updates on this will be communicated.

In summary, we hope to help coordinate ACCESS development and use moving forward. If you have any questions, the best contacts would likely be Helen Cleugh in CSIRO, Peter May in the Bureau, David Karoly in the NESP and Andy Pitman in CLEX.

Best wishes

ACCESS Oversight Committee

ACCESS Oversight Committee: Draft Terms of Reference and Operating Guidelines

Background: The ACCESS Oversight Committee (“AOC” hereafter) has been formed to provide efficient and effective governance for the national weather, climate and Earth System modelling system, ACCESS. It replaces the lapsed ACCESS Advisory Group and ACCESS Research Leaders Group. These latter two governance groups were formed during CAWCR but have only met sporadically over the last few years.

Membership of the AOC is:

  1. Director of the ARC Centre for Climate Extremes and one other representative from CLEX.
  2. Bureau of Meteorology, General Manager of the Science to Services Branch and one other representative from BoM.
  3. Director of CSIRO’s Climate Science Centre and one other representative from CSIRO.
  4. NESP Earth System and Climate Change Hub Leader
  5. Associate Director, Research Engagements and Initiatives, NCI Australia

Domain experts will be invited as needed. New members can be brought onto the AOC by unanimous agreement of existing members.

Chair, Notetaker and Meeting Frequency: The Chair and Notetaker will be rotated amongst members at each meeting. The AOC will meet ca. 10 times per year (approximately monthly) by videoconference.

Principles and Purpose: The AOC recognises the priorities of those individual Agencies that are investing in supporting ACCESS. In this context, it will nonetheless strive to build an ACCESS community and explore opportunities for collaboration. But it also acknowledges that there will be some aspects of the ACCESS model development and use that will be Agency-specific.

Given these principles, the core purpose of the AOC is to then provide and/or promote:

  • A forum for information sharing about ACCESS development and applications.
  • A forum where issues regarding ACCESS development and use can be raised and where possible, to work collaboratively to identify and effect solutions.
  • Improved coordination regarding ACCESS development and application across Australian research agencies, programs, and NCI.
  • A forum to foster stronger collaboration across the Australian research community and NCI.
  • Community-wide engagement and information-sharing activities such as Workshops, ACCESS Science days etc.
  • A forum for engaging with key stakeholders within Australia (such as DoEE, State governments, clients) and internationally (especially the UK MetOffice and GFDL). Note that this engagement does not replace the formal governance structures that exist – for example the UM Partnership Board.

The AOC will develop and implement an annual Work Program, covering possible initiatives such as:

  • Developing an ACCESS Strategy and/or Roadmap;
  • Processes for approving and sharing model version updates; and
  • An annual stocktake of ACCESS activities