A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling

A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling
Author: Committee on a National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2013-01-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309259789

As climate change has pushed climate patterns outside of historic norms, the need for detailed projections is growing across all sectors, including agriculture, insurance, and emergency preparedness planning. A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling emphasizes the needs for climate models to evolve substantially in order to deliver climate projections at the scale and level of detail desired by decision makers, this report finds. Despite much recent progress in developing reliable climate models, there are still efficiencies to be gained across the large and diverse U.S. climate modeling community. Evolving to a more unified climate modeling enterprise-in particular by developing a common software infrastructure shared by all climate researchers and holding an annual climate modeling forum-could help speed progress. Throughout this report, several recommendations and guidelines are outlined to accelerate progress in climate modeling. The U.S. supports several climate models, each conceptually similar but with components assembled with slightly different software and data output standards. If all U.S. climate models employed a single software system, it could simplify testing and migration to new computing hardware, and allow scientists to compare and interchange climate model components, such as land surface or ocean models. A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling recommends an annual U.S. climate modeling forum be held to help bring the nation's diverse modeling communities together with the users of climate data. This would provide climate model data users with an opportunity to learn more about the strengths and limitations of models and provide input to modelers on their needs and provide a venue for discussions of priorities for the national modeling enterprise, and bring disparate climate science communities together to design common modeling experiments. In addition, A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling explains that U.S. climate modelers will need to address an expanding breadth of scientific problems while striving to make predictions and projections more accurate. Progress toward this goal can be made through a combination of increasing model resolution, advances in observations, improved model physics, and more complete representations of the Earth system. To address the computing needs of the climate modeling community, the report suggests a two-pronged approach that involves the continued use and upgrading of existing climate-dedicated computing resources at modeling centers, together with research on how to effectively exploit the more complex computer hardware systems expected over the next 10 to 20 years.

Downscaling Techniques for High-Resolution Climate Projections

Downscaling Techniques for High-Resolution Climate Projections
Author: Rao Kotamarthi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2021-02-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1108587062

Downscaling is a widely used technique for translating information from large-scale climate models to the spatial and temporal scales needed to assess local and regional climate impacts, vulnerability, risk and resilience. This book is a comprehensive guide to the downscaling techniques used for climate data. A general introduction of the science of climate modeling is followed by a discussion of techniques, models and methodologies used for producing downscaled projections, and the advantages, disadvantages and uncertainties of each. The book provides detailed information on dynamic and statistical downscaling techniques in non-technical language, as well as recommendations for selecting suitable downscaled datasets for different applications. The use of downscaled climate data in national and international assessments is also discussed using global examples. This is a practical guide for graduate students and researchers working on climate impacts and adaptation, as well as for policy makers and practitioners interested in climate risk and resilience.

High-resolution Coupling and Initialization to Improve Predictability and Predictions in Climate Models Workshop, September 30-October 2, 2015

High-resolution Coupling and Initialization to Improve Predictability and Predictions in Climate Models Workshop, September 30-October 2, 2015
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2016
Genre: Climatology
ISBN:

"There is a growing demand for reliable high-resolution, coupled-climate information in two communities: the predictions and projections communities. The climate prediction community conducts both basic and applied research on short-range climate predictability that directly benefit operational forecast capabilities, and the climate modeling and projection community focuses primarily on basic research concerning climate variability and long-term climate change. Despite the differences, there are several key parallels between these two research communities—a basic example being that both communities assimilate observational data into comprehensive physical climate or earth system models. The prediction community uses a variety of data assimilation techniques for initializing real-time forecasts and reforecasts, and for producing reanalysis, while the climate modeling and projections community started to adopt data assimilation techniques for basic research and for short-term reforecasts to diagnose model behavior. Both communities are also on the verge of increasing the resolution of the climate models while coupling with many more components of the climate and Earth system. While the predictions community explicitly aims to advance the development of operational products that are of the highest possible value to stakeholders and decision-makers at the weeks-toseasons timescale, the climate modeling community is implicitly involved in generating products that are used in assessments and to inform stakeholders and decision-makers about long-term climate change. Recognizing the common challenges and capitalizing on the potential synergies, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) jointly hosted the workshop High-Resolution Coupling and Initialization to Improve Predictability and Predictions in Climate Models. This workshop brought together two groups of scientific experts: one focused on sub-seasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) climate predictions and the other focused on using initialized simulations to identify biases in climate models, such as in the Cloud Associated Parameterization Testbed (CAPT)"--Executive summary. [doi:10.7289/V5K35RNX (http://dx.doi.org/10.7289/V5K35RNX)]

Demystifying Climate Models

Demystifying Climate Models
Author: Andrew Gettelman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-04-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3662489597

This book demystifies the models we use to simulate present and future climates, allowing readers to better understand how to use climate model results. In order to predict the future trajectory of the Earth’s climate, climate-system simulation models are necessary. When and how do we trust climate model predictions? The book offers a framework for answering this question. It provides readers with a basic primer on climate and climate change, and offers non-technical explanations for how climate models are constructed, why they are uncertain, and what level of confidence we should place in them. It presents current results and the key uncertainties concerning them. Uncertainty is not a weakness but understanding uncertainty is a strength and a key part of using any model, including climate models. Case studies of how climate model output has been used and how it might be used in the future are provided. The ultimate goal of this book is to promote a better understanding of the structure and uncertainties of climate models among users, including scientists, engineers and policymakers.

Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability

Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2010-09-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309161347

More accurate forecasts of climate conditions over time periods of weeks to a few years could help people plan agricultural activities, mitigate drought, and manage energy resources, amongst other activities; however, current forecast systems have limited ability on these time- scales. Models for such climate forecasts must take into account complex interactions among the ocean, atmosphere, and land surface. Such processes can be difficult to represent realistically. To improve the quality of forecasts, this book makes recommendations about the development of the tools used in forecasting and about specific research goals for improving understanding of sources of predictability. To improve the accessibility of these forecasts to decision-makers and researchers, this book also suggests best practices to improve how forecasts are made and disseminated.

Making Climate Forecasts Matter

Making Climate Forecasts Matter
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 1999-05-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 030917340X

El Nino has been with us for centuries, but now we can forcast it, and thus can prepare far in advance for the extreme climatic events it brings. The emerging ability to forecast climate may be of tremendous value to humanity if we learn how to use the information well. How does society cope with seasonal-to-interannual climatic variations? How have climate forecasts been usedâ€"and how useful have they been? What kinds of forecast information are needed? Who is likely to benefit from forecasting skill? What are the benefits of better forecasting? This book reviews what we know about these and other questions and identifies research directions toward more useful seasonal-to-interannual climate forecasts. In approaching their recommendations, the panel explores: Vulnerability of human activities to climate. State of the science of climate forecasting. How societies coevolved with their climates and cope with variations in climate. How climate information should be disseminated to achieve the best response. How we can use forecasting to better manage the human consequences of climate change.

Climate Change Modeling Methodology

Climate Change Modeling Methodology
Author: Philip J. Rasch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012-12-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 146145767X

The Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.4°F over the past century, and computer models project that it will rise much more over the next hundred years, with significant impacts on weather, climate, and human society. Many climate scientists attribute these increases to the build up of greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels and to the anthropogenic production of short-lived climate pollutants. Climate Change Modeling Methodologies: Selected Entries from the Encyclopaedia of Sustainability Science and Technology provides readers with an introduction to the tools and analysis techniques used by climate change scientists to interpret the role of these forcing agents on climate. Readers will also gain a deeper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these models and how to test and assess them. The contributions include a glossary of key terms and a concise definition of the subject for each topic, as well as recommendations for sources of more detailed information.

Global Effects of Environmental Pollution

Global Effects of Environmental Pollution
Author: S.F. Singer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401032904

The Symposium on the Global Effects of Environmental Pollution has performed an important task; it has helped to determine the world-wide impact of certain types of local pollution and has uncovered certain unsuspected effects that might hold dan gerous implications for the future. This Symposium should help to make the world aware of a crisis that is becoming more ominous and that involves the developing as well as the developed countries - the crisis of the human environment. The causes of this crisis are not difficult to discern. There has been an unprecedented increase in the world's population, an ever-increasing rate of urbanization, and in many countries, a continuous process of industrialization. Essentially, advancing technology has made it possible for a minority of mankind to achieve affluence and holds out hope for improving the well-being of the great majority. But, because it has not been integrated into the natural environment, this very technology - in industry, in agriculture or in transport - is having many undesir able and potentially catastrophic consequences. Our air, our water and our soil are in grave danger. Many species of animal and plant life have become extinct or are facing extinction. The loss to mankind is grave and even the future oflife on earth may be in danger. The challenge is to find ways of repairing the harm already done and to prevent further harm.

Our Future Climate

Our Future Climate
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2003
Genre: Climatic changes
ISBN:

Issued for World Meteorological Day 2003, this brochure explains, in terms accessible to the general public, the climate system and the climate change processes, as well as model projections of our future climate with its far-reaching consequences to society. The brochure also explains why the unprecedented weather- and climate-related extreme events, such as floods, droughts and tropical cyclones in various parts of the world, are glimpses of what could be awaiting future generations if human-induced change to our climate is not brought under control.--Publisher's description.