ESS221 chapter2 Climate Models
Channel: Richard Knight
Date: 2020-05-05

Early in the 20th century a Norwegian named Vihelm Bjerknes claimed that atmospheric physics was advanced enough to forecast weather by calculations.

He came up with 7 equations that predicted "large-scale atmospheric motions." Unfortunately these equations did not provide fast calculating methods nor provide accurate forecasting techniques.

The complexity of weather processes is such that even the crudest models were improbably calculation intensive.

It was not until simple computers were developed that national weather prediction (NWP) was feasible.

The first full time NWP was carried out by the Royal Swedish Air Force Weather Service in Stockholm in December 1954.

It forecast weather three times a week.


Shortly thereafter, NWP was implemented in most western countries.
The global climate system is a result of the link of atmosphere, oceans, the ice sheets (cryosphere), living organisms (biosphere) and the soils, sediments and rocks (geosphere), each of which will be considered in greater detail after this.

Each of these systems is integrally connected to the others, and energy exchanges between and within systems, as well as other interactions (such as the provision of nuclei for rain droplet formation) determine climatic condtions.

However, despite the interconnectedness, an explanation must clearly focus on aspects separately, and the linkages between these systems.

Climate models allow us to study these aspects of the systems independently.

GCMs stitch these individual models together through a process of linkages, the development of which has taken many years and a great degree of understanding of the climate.