The Earth system model EC-Earth3 for contributions to CMIP6 is documented here, with its flexible coupling framework, major model configurations, a methodology for ensuring the simulations are comparable across different high-performance computing (HPC) systems, and with the physical performance of base configurations over the historical period. The variety of possible configurations and sub-models reflects the broad interests in the EC-Earth community. EC-Earth3 key performance metrics demonstrate physical behavior and biases well within the frame known from recent CMIP models. With improved physical and dynamic features, new Earth system model (ESM) components, community tools, and largely improved physical performance compared to the CMIP5 version, EC-Earth3 represents a clear step forward for the only European community ESM. We demonstrate here that EC-Earth3 is suited for a range of tasks in CMIP6 and beyond.

We present a new framework for global ocean–sea-ice model simulations based on phase 2 of the Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP-2), making use of the surface dataset based on the Japanese 55-year atmospheric reanalysis for driving ocean–sea-ice models (JRA55-do). We motivate the use of OMIP-2 over the framework for the first phase of OMIP (OMIP-1), previously referred to as the Coordinated Ocean–ice Reference Experiments (COREs), via the evaluation of OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 simulations from 11 state-of-the-science global ocean–sea-ice models. In the present evaluation, multi-model ensemble means and spreads are calculated separately for the OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 simulations and overall performance is assessed considering metrics commonly used by ocean modelers. Both OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 multi-model ensemble ranges capture observations in more than 80 % of the time and region for most metrics, with the multi-model ensemble spread greatly exceeding the difference between the means of the two datasets. Many features, including some climatologically relevant ocean circulation indices, are very similar between OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 simulations, and yet we could also identify key qualitative improvements in transitioning from OMIP-1 to OMIP-2. For example, the sea surface temperatures of the OMIP-2 simulations reproduce the observed global warming during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the warming slowdown in the 2000s and the more recent accelerated warming, which were absent in OMIP-1, noting that the last feature is part of the design of OMIP-2 because OMIP-1 forcing stopped in 2009. A negative bias in the sea-ice concentration in summer of both hemispheres in OMIP-1 is significantly reduced in OMIP-2. The overall reproducibility of both seasonal and interannual variations in sea surface temperature and sea surface height (dynamic sea level) is improved in OMIP-2. These improvements represent a new capability of the OMIP-2 framework for evaluating process-level responses using simulation results. Regarding the sensitivity of individual models to the change in forcing, the models show well-ordered responses for the metrics that are directly forced, while they show less organized responses for those that require complex model adjustments. Many of the remaining common model biases may be attributed either to errors in representing important processes in ocean–sea-ice models, some of which are expected to be reduced by using finer horizontal and/or vertical resolutions, or to shared biases and limitations in the atmospheric forcing. In particular, further efforts are warranted to resolve remaining issues in OMIP-2 such as the warm bias in the upper layer, the mismatch between the observed and simulated variability of heat content and thermosteric sea level before 1990s, and the erroneous representation of deep and bottom water formations and circulations. We suggest that such problems can be resolved through collaboration between those developing models (including parameterizations) and forcing datasets. Overall, the present assessment justifies our recommendation that future model development and analysis studies use the OMIP-2 framework.

We analyse simulations of the Pacific Ocean oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) from 11 Earth system model contributions to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5, focusing on the mean state and climate change projections. The simulations tend to overestimate the volume of the OMZs, especially in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. Compared to observations, five models introduce incorrect meridional asymmetries in the distribution of oxygen including larger southern OMZ and weaker northern OMZ, due to interhemispheric biases in intermediate water mass ventilation. Seven models show too deep an extent of the tropical hypoxia compared to observations, stemming from a deficient equatorial ventilation in the upper ocean, combined with too large a biologically driven downward flux of particulate organic carbon at depth, caused by particle export from the euphotic layer that is too high and remineralization in the upper ocean that is too weak. At interannual timescales, the dynamics of oxygen in the eastern tropical Pacific OMZ is dominated by biological consumption and linked to natural variability in the Walker circulation. However, under the climate change scenario RCP8.5, all simulations yield small and discrepant changes in oxygen concentration at mid depths in the tropical Pacific by the end of the 21st century due to an almost perfect compensation between warming-related decrease in oxygen saturation and decrease in biological oxygen utilization. Climate change projections are at odds with recent observations that show decreasing oxygen levels at mid depths in the tropical Pacific. Out of the OMZs, all the CMIP5 models predict a decrease of oxygen over most of the surface and deep ocean at low latitudes and over all depths at high latitudes due to an overall slow-down of ventilation and increased temperature.

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesise datasets and methodologies to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO ₂ emissions ( E _FOS ) are based on energy and cement production data. Emissions from land-use change ( E _LUC ) are estimated by bookkeeping models based on land-use data. The global atmospheric CO ₂ growth rate ( G _ATM ) is computed from changes in concentration measured at surface stations. The global net uptake of CO ₂ by the ocean ( S _OCEAN ) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based f CO ₂ -products. The global net uptake of CO ₂ by the land ( S _LAND ) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. Additional lines of evidence are provided by atmospheric inversions, atmospheric oxygen measurements, ocean interior observation-based estimates, and Earth System Models. This year, we introduced corrections on the E _LUC , S _OCEAN and S _LAND estimates. The sum of all sources and sinks results in the carbon budget imbalance ( B _IM ), a measure of imperfect data and incomplete understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as ± 1 σ . For the year 2024, E _FOS increased by 1.1 % relative to 2023, with fossil emissions at 10.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr ⁻¹ (including the cement carbonation sink, 0.2 GtC yr ⁻¹ ), E _LUC was 1.3 ± 0.7 GtC yr ⁻¹ , for total anthropogenic CO ₂ emissions of 11.6 ± 0.9 GtC yr ⁻¹ (42.4 ± 3.2 GtCO ₂ yr ⁻¹ ). Also, for 2024, G _ATM was 7.9 ± 0.2 GtC yr ⁻¹ (3.73 ± 0.1 ppm yr ⁻¹ ), 2.2 GtC above the 2023 growth rate. S _OCEAN was 3.4 ± 0.4 GtC yr ⁻¹ and S _LAND was 1.9 ± 1.1 GtC yr ⁻¹ , leaving a large negative B _IM (−1.7 GtC yr ⁻¹ ), suggesting that the total sink or G _ATM is strongly overestimated in 2024. The global atmospheric CO ₂ concentration averaged over 2024 reached 422.8 ± 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2025 suggest an increase in E _FOS relative to 2024 of +1.0 % (0.2 % to 1.7 %) globally, and atmospheric CO ₂ concentration increasing by 2.1 ppm reaching 425.6 ppm, 53 % above the pre-industrial level (around 278 ppm in 1750). Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959–2024, with a near-zero overall budget imbalance, although discrepancies of up to around 1 GtC yr ⁻¹ persist for the representation of annual to decadal variability in CO ₂ fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows: (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use change emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO ₂ flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the mean ocean sink. This living data update documents changes in methods and datasets applied to this most-recent global carbon budget as well as evolving community understanding of the global carbon cycle. The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2025 (Friedlingstein et al., 2025c).

The separate impacts of wind stress, buoyancy fluxes, and CO2 solubility on the oceanic storage of natural carbon are assessed in an ensemble of twentieth- to twenty-first-century simulations, using a coupled atmosphere–ocean–carbon cycle model. Time-varying perturbations for surface wind stress, temperature, and salinity are calculated from the difference between climate change and preindustrial control simulations, and are imposed on the ocean in separate simulations. The response of the natural carbon storage to each perturbation is assessed with novel prognostic biogeochemical tracers, which can explicitly decompose dissolved inorganic carbon into biological, preformed, equilibrium, and disequilibrium components. Strong responses of these components to changes in buoyancy and winds are seen at high latitudes, reflecting the critical role of intermediate and deep waters. Overall, circulation-driven changes in carbon storage are mainly due to changes in buoyancy fluxes, with wind-driven changes playing an opposite but smaller role. Results suggest that climate-driven perturbations to the ocean natural carbon cycle will contribute 20 Pg C to the reduction of the ocean accumulated total carbon uptake over the period 1860–2100. This reflects a strong compensation between a buildup of remineralized organic matter associated with reduced deep-water formation (+96 Pg C) and a decrease of preformed carbon (−116 Pg C). The latter is due to a warming-induced decrease in CO2 solubility (−52 Pg C) and a circulation-induced decrease in disequilibrium carbon storage (−64 Pg C). Climate change gives rise to a large spatial redistribution of ocean carbon, with increasing concentrations at high latitudes and stronger vertical gradients at low latitudes.