Dataset: Permafrost sensitivity to soil hydro-thermodynamics in historical and scenario simulations with the MPI-ESM

DATASET OVERVIEW

This Zenodo repository contains a comprehensive dataset of global mean annual air temperature (over land, MAAT), mean annual ground surface temperature (at 0.1 m depth, MAGST), mean annual subsurface temperature at 5 m depth (MAST5), active layer thickness (ALT), and permafrost extent (PEXT) stemming from the ensemble of simulations coined as MPIESM-PePE (García-Pereira et al., 2025). The MPIESM-PePE was conceived to assess the sensitivity of permafrost climate variability under different forcing conditions (pre-industrial control, historical, future climate change scenarios) to changes in the thermodynamics (depth) and hydrology of the Land Surface Model (LSM) in an Earth System Model (ESM) coupled framework. These simulations were performed with the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) with a modified version of its LSM, JSBACH. A thourough description of the modifications made to MPI-ESM, this dataset, and the results stemming from the comparison of the different members of the MPIESM-PePE can be found in García-Pereira et al. (2025). 

DATASET CONTENTS

The dataset is provided in NetCDF format. Folders are organized by variables (MAAT, MAGST, MAST5, ALT, PEXT). Every folder contains the variable data for the different hydrological configurations (WET, DRY, REF) and vertical discretizations (5, 11, and 18L) defined in García-Pereira et al. (2025). For every configuration and variable, data are given for the pre-industrial control (PIC), historical (HIS) and different Socioeconomic Shared Pathways (SSPs): SSP1, SSP2, and SSP5.
Naming convention of the files follows:

MPIESM-PePE_<config><vert_disc>_SSP<ssp>_<variable>.nc

where <config> indicates the configuration, <vert_disc> the vertical discretization, <ssp> the SSP period following PIC and HIS, and <variable> the variable of interest. The permafrost mask used to select the grid cells where the JSBACH-HTCp are applied is also provided (attached in the MAAT folder).

CITATION INSTRUCTIONS

If you use this dataset, please cite the following references:

García-Pereira, F., González-Rouco, J. F., Meabe-Yanguas, N., de Vrese, P., Steinert, N. J., Jungclaus, J., and Lorenz, S.: Permafrost sensitivity to soil hydro-thermodynamics in historical and scenario simulations with the MPI-ESM, EGUsphere [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2126, 2025.

Or the updated final version upon final publication in The Cryosphere. Do not hesitate to contact the corresponding author to resolve doubts or request extra data!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ) for the resources granted by its ScientiDic Steering Committee (WLA) to run the MPIESM-PePE simulation ensemble under project ID bm1026.