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Abstract Climate models generally overestimate observed Southern Ocean surface warming trends over the past three decades. This discrepancy could be due to biased surface freshwater fluxes in climate models, which underestimate observed precipitation increases and do not account for Antarctic Ice Sheet and shelf mass loss. Though past modeling experiments show surface cooling in response to freshwater perturbations, sea surface temperature (SST) responses vary widely across models. To address these ambiguities, we compute linear SST response functions for standardized freshwater flux increases across a subset of CMIP6 models. For 1990–2021, underestimated freshwater fluxes can explain up to 60% of the model‐observation SST trend difference. The response functions reveal that Southern Ocean SST trends are more sensitive to freshwater fluxes concentrated along the Antarctic margin versus more spatially distributed fluxes. Our results quantify, for the first time, the impact of missing freshwater forcing on Southern Ocean SST trends across a multi‐model ensemble. 

Abstract Density-driven steric seawater changes are a leading-order contributor to global mean sea level rise. However, intermodel differences in the magnitude and spatial patterns of steric sea level rise exist at regional scales and often emerge during the spinup and preindustrial control integrations of climate models. Steric sea level results from an eddy-permitting climate model, GFDL CM4, are compared with a lower-resolution counterpart, GFDL-ESM4. The results from both models are examined through basin-scale heat budgets and watermass analysis, and we compare the patterns of ocean heat uptake, redistribution, and sea level differ in ocean-only [i.e., Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP)] and coupled climate configurations. After correcting for model drift, both GFDL CM4 and GFDL-ESM4 simulate nearly equivalent ocean heat content change and global sea level rise during the historical period. However, the GFDL CM4 model exhibits as much as a 40% increase in surface ocean heat uptake in the Southern Ocean and subsequent increases in horizontal export to other ocean basins after bias correction. The results suggest regional differences in the processes governing Southern Ocean heat export, such as the formation of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), Subpolar Mode Water (SPMW), and gyre transport between the two models, and that sea level changes in these models cannot be fully bias-corrected. Since the process-level differences between the two models are evident in the preindustrial control simulations of both models, these results suggest that the control simulations are important for identifying and correcting sea level–related model biases. 

Enhanced Antarctic ice sheet mass loss yields ocean surface freshening, cooling and sea ice expansion, which result in changes in the atmospheric conditions. Using the Southern Ocean Freshwater Input from Antarctica (SOFIA) multi‐model ensemble, we study the atmospheric response to a 100‐year idealized freshwater release of 0.1 Sv. All models simulate a surface‐intensified tropospheric cooling and lower‐stratospheric warming south of 35°S. Tropospheric cooling is attributed to sea ice expansion and the associated albedo enhancement in winter and a colder sea surface in summer. This cooling yields a downward displacement of the tropopause, reduced stratospheric water vapor content and ultimately warming around 200 hPa. An enhanced southward eddy heat flux explains warming at 10–100 hPa during austral winter. Despite a temporally (and spatially) uniform prescribed freshwater flux, a prominent sea ice seasonal cycle and atmosphere dynamics result in a distinct seasonal pattern in the occurrence and magnitude of the temperature responses. 

Abstract This paper is Part II of a two‐part paper that documents the Climate Model version 4X (CM4X) hierarchy of coupled climate models developed at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Part I of this paper is presented in Griffies et al. (2025a,https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004861). Here we present a suite of case studies that examine ocean and sea ice features that are targeted for further research, which include sea level, eastern boundary upwelling, Arctic and Southern Ocean sea ice, Southern Ocean circulation, and North Atlantic circulation. The case studies are based on experiments that follow the protocol of version 6 from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. The analysis reveals a systematic improvement in the simulation fidelity of CM4X relative to its CM4.0 predecessor, as well as an improvement when refining the ocean/sea ice horizontal grid spacing from the of CM4X‐p25 to the of CM4X‐p125. Even so, there remain many outstanding biases, thus pointing to the need for further grid refinements, enhancements to numerical methods, and/or advances in parameterizations, each of which target long‐standing model biases and limitations. 

Abstract We present the GFDL‐CM4X (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Climate Model version 4X) coupled climate model hierarchy. The primary application for CM4X is to investigate ocean and sea ice physics as part of a realistic coupled Earth climate model. CM4X utilizes an updated MOM6 (Modular Ocean Model version 6) ocean physics package relative to CM4.0, and there are two members of the hierarchy: one that uses a horizontal grid spacing of (referred to as CM4X‐p25) and the other that uses a grid (CM4X‐p125). CM4X also refines its atmospheric grid from the nominally 100 km (cubed sphere C96) of CM4.0–50 km (C192). Finally, CM4X simplifies the land model to allow for a more focused study of the role of ocean changes to global mean climate. CM4X‐p125 reaches a global ocean area mean heat flux imbalance of within years in a pre‐industrial simulation, and retains that thermally equilibrated state over the subsequent centuries. This 1850 thermal equilibrium is characterized by roughly less ocean heat than present‐day, which corresponds to estimates for anthropogenic ocean heat uptake between 1870 and present‐day. CM4X‐p25 approaches its thermal equilibrium only after more than 1000 years, at which time its ocean has roughlymoreheat than its early 21st century ocean initial state. Furthermore, the root‐mean‐square sea surface temperature bias for historical simulations is roughly 20% smaller in CM4X‐p125 relative to CM4X‐p25 (and CM4.0). We offer themesoscale dominance hypothesisfor why CM4X‐p125 shows such favorable thermal equilibration properties. 

Abstract Purpose of Review Assessment of the impact of ocean resolution in Earth System models on the mean state, variability, and future projections and discussion of prospects for improved parameterisations to represent the ocean mesoscale. Recent Findings The majority of centres participating in CMIP6 employ ocean components with resolutions of about 1 degree in their full Earth System models (eddy-parameterising models). In contrast, there are also models submitted to CMIP6 (both DECK and HighResMIP) that employ ocean components of approximately 1/4 degree and 1/10 degree (eddy-present and eddy-rich models). Evidence to date suggests that whether the ocean mesoscale is explicitly represented or parameterised affects not only the mean state of the ocean but also the climate variability and the future climate response, particularly in terms of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and the Southern Ocean. Recent developments in scale-aware parameterisations of the mesoscale are being developed and will be included in future Earth System models. Summary Although the choice of ocean resolution in Earth System models will always be limited by computational considerations, for the foreseeable future, this choice is likely to affect projections of climate variability and change as well as other aspects of the Earth System. Future Earth System models will be able to choose increased ocean resolution and/or improved parameterisation of processes to capture physical processes with greater fidelity.