How do climate models work?

Question 1

What are most sophisticated climate models?

Answer 1

GCMs- General Circulation Model or Global Climate Model

Question 2

What is a climate model?

Answer 2

Actually a collection of models - typically an atmosphere model, an ocean model, a land model, and a sea ice model.

Question 3

Each component represents a staggering amount of complex, specialized processes. Name a few:

Answer 3

Atmosphere: sea salt suspended in the air, three-dimensional wind velocity, the wavelengths of incoming sunlight
Ocean: phytoplankton, the iron cycle, the movement of tides
Land: soil hydrology, forest fires, air conditioning in cities
Sea Ice: pollution trapped within the ice, melt ponds, the age of different parts of the ice.

Question 4

Scientists feed input files into the model, which contain the values of certain parameters, particularly agents that can cause climate change. These include…

Answer 4

the concentration of greenhouse gases, the intensity of sunlight, the amount of deforestation, and volcanoes that should erupt during the simulation.

Question 5

So how do we know the models are working?

Answer 5

Give the model the observed conditions of the year 1900, run it forward to 2000, and see if the climate it recreates matches up with observations from the real world.