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a b s t r a c tSimulation characteristics from eighteen global ocean-sea-ice coupled models are presented with a focus on the mean Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and other related fields in the North Atlantic. These experiments use inter-annually varying atmospheric forcing data sets for the 60-year period from 1948 to 2007 and are performed as contributions to the second phase of the Coordinated Oceanice Reference Experiments (CORE-II). The protocol for conducting such CORE-II experiments is summarized. Despite using the same atmospheric forcing, the solutions show significant differences. As most models also differ from available observations, biases in the Labrador Sea region in upper-ocean potential temperature and salinity distributions, mixed layer depths, and sea-ice cover are identified as contributors to differences in AMOC. These differences in the solutions do not suggest an obvious grouping of the models based on their ocean model lineage, their vertical coordinate representations, or surface salinity restoring strengths. Thus, the solution differences among the models are attributed primarily to use of different subgrid scale parameterizations and parameter choices as well as to differences in vertical and horizontal grid resolutions in the ocean models. Use of a wide variety of sea-ice models with diverse snow and sea-ice albedo treatments also contributes to these differences. Based on the diagnostics considered, the majority of the models appear suitable for use in studies involving the North Atlantic, but some models require dedicated development effort.

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Abstract. The Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP) is an endorsed project in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). OMIP addresses CMIP6 science questions, investigating the origins and consequences of systematic model biases. It does so by providing a framework for evaluating (including assessment of systematic biases), understanding, and improving ocean, sea-ice, tracer, and biogeochemical components of climate and earth system models contributing to CMIP6. Among the WCRP Grand Challenges in climate science (GCs), OMIP primarily contributes to the regional sea level change and near-term (climate/decadal) prediction GCs.OMIP provides (a) an experimental protocol for global ocean/sea-ice models run with a prescribed atmospheric forcing; and (b) a protocol for ocean diagnostics to be saved as part of CMIP6. We focus here on the physical component of OMIP, with a companion paper (Orr et al., 2016) detailing methods for the inert chemistry and interactive biogeochemistry. The physical portion of the OMIP experimental protocol follows the interannual Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments (CORE-II). Since 2009, CORE-I (Normal Year Forcing) and CORE-II (Interannual Forcing) have become the standard methods to evaluate global ocean/sea-ice simulations and to examine mechanisms for forced ocean climate variability. The OMIP diagnostic protocol is relevant for any ocean model component of CMIP6, including the DECK (Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima experiments), historical simulations, FAFMIP (Flux Anomaly Forced MIP), C4MIP (Coupled Carbon Cycle Climate MIP), DAMIP (Detection and Attribution MIP), DCPP (Decadal Climate Prediction Project), ScenarioMIP, HighResMIP (High Resolution MIP), as well as the ocean/sea-ice OMIP simulations.

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The viability of a generalized (Hybrid) Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM), together with the importance of thermobaricity and the choice of reference pressure, is demonstrated by analyzing simulations carried out using the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Community Modeling Experiment (CME) Atlantic basin configuration. The standard hybrid vertical coordinate configuration is designed to remain isopycnic throughout as much of the water column as possible while smoothly making a transition to level (pressure) coordinates in regions with weak vertical density gradients, such as the surface mixed layer, and to terrain-following coordinates in shallow-water regions. Single-coordinate (pressure or density) experiments illustrate the flexibility of the model but also bring forward some of the limitations associated with such a choice. Hybrid experiments with potential density referenced to the surface () and to 20 MPa (ϳ2000 m) (2) illustrate the increased influence of pressure errors with increasing distance from the reference pressure. The hybrid experiment does not properly reproduce the northward flow of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), and large errors in near-surface pressure gradients in the 2 experiment produce a wind-driven gyre circulation that is too strong, when compared with observations, and a North Atlantic Current that follows an unrealistic path. These near-surface and nearbottom pressure errors are removed when thermobaric effects are included, resulting in a more accurate representation of the upper-ocean gyre circulation, the northward AABW flow near the bottom, and the meridional overturning circulation and heat flux.