This module explains how climate models work. Because the modeling of both weather and climate share many similarities, the content throughout this module draws frequent comparisons and highlights the differences. We explain not only how, but why climate models differ from weather models. To do so, we explore the difference between weather and climate, then show how models are built to simulate climate and generate the statistics that describe it. We conclude with a discussion of models are tuned and tested.
Understanding how climate responds to changes in atmospheric composition and other factors drives climate research. Climate models provide a tool to understand how processes work and interact with each other.
Our intended audience is the weather forecasting community: those who are already familiar with NWP models. Non-forecasters with an interest in weather and climate should also find the module useful. The content is not overly technical and the goal of this module is not to train people to develop climate models but to highlight the similarities and differences between weather and climate models.
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By the end of this module the learner will be able to do the following:
- Recall key concepts on the nature of atmospheric predictability on both short and long time scales and a variety of spatial scales
- Explain similarities and differences in weather and climate models
- Recount key components and forcing mechanisms included in climate models
- Describe how climate models are tested and evaluated
- List climate model strengths and weaknesses
- Recall how and why climate models are tuned
- Summarize for others “How Climate Models Work”
model, climate, atmosphere, initial conditions, boundary conditions, prediction, projection, resolved processes, parameterization, tuning, bias, natural variability, resolution
