Book contents
- The Climate Demon
- Reviews
- The Climate Demon
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Past
- Part II The Present
- 8 Occam’s Razor
- 9 Constraining Climate
- 10 Tuning Climate
- 11 Occam’s Beard
- 12 The Hansen Paradox
- 13 The Rumsfeld Matrix
- 14 Lost in Translation
- 15 Taking Climate Models Seriously, Not Literally
- Part III The Future
- Glossary
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- References
- Index
9 - Constraining Climate
A Conservative View of Modeling
from Part II - The Present
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2021
- The Climate Demon
- Reviews
- The Climate Demon
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Past
- Part II The Present
- 8 Occam’s Razor
- 9 Constraining Climate
- 10 Tuning Climate
- 11 Occam’s Beard
- 12 The Hansen Paradox
- 13 The Rumsfeld Matrix
- 14 Lost in Translation
- 15 Taking Climate Models Seriously, Not Literally
- Part III The Future
- Glossary
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- References
- Index
Summary
Climate modeling developed further at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. The laws of physics that form the foundation of weather and climate models imply strict conservation of properties like mass, momentum, and energy. A household budget analogy can be used to explain these conservation requirements, which are stricter for climate models as opposed to weather models. A mismatch in the energy transfer between atmospheric and oceanic models that were part of a climate model led to a correction technique developed in the 1980s known as flux adjustment, which violated energy conservation. Subsequent improvements in climate models obviated the need for these artificial flux adjustments. Now we have more complex models, known as Earth System Models, that include biological and chemical processes such as the carbon cycle. The concept of the constraining power of models is introduced.
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- The Climate DemonPast, Present, and Future of Climate Prediction, pp. 142 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021