CMIP7 experiment name guidance

When Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) define experiments, they must specify the experiment conditions, including boundary conditions and external forcings and usually a start date and duration of the experiment, along with any other imposed requirements. Once an experiment has been defined, it must be assigned a unique short name, which will be relied on by the MIP supporting software infrastructure for uniquely identifying datasets and managing the data. These short names will typically also be used by researchers in, for example, journal articles to identify the experiment when describing results and as labels in the figures they produce.

This document provides guidance to MIPs in how to construct their experiment short names. To ensure within a given CMIP phase that all the short names are unique, participating MIPs must submit their proposed short names for review by the WGCM Infrastructure Panel (WIP). In addition to ensuring uniqueness, the WIP may suggest changes to submitted names that are inconsistent with the naming rules developed over past CMIP phases. By ensuring consistency of names across MIPs and across phases of CMIP, it will be easier for users to interpret them.

This guidance document is in active development and will be regularly reviewed and updated by the WIP. The latest available version will always be uploaded to Zenodo once available.