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Atmospheric General Circulation Modeling

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Climate Change Modeling Methodology

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Abstract

This entry provides a brief introduction to the computer models of the atmosphere used for climate studies. The concepts of atmospheric forcing and response are developed and used to highlight the importance of clouds and aerosols to the climate system and the many uncertainties associated with their representation.

This chapter was originally published as part of the Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology edited by Robert A. Meyers. DOI:10.1007/978-1-4419-0851-3

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Abbreviations

Aerosols:

The small (solid and liquid) particles that are suspended in the atmosphere. Aerosols have both natural (e.g., sea-salt, dust, and some organic compounds released by vegetation) and anthropogenic origins (e.g., the pollution released by power plants, cars, trucks, agricultural burning, etc.).

Climate:

The statistical description of characteristics of our environment over long periods, including properties like the mean and extreme values of value of fields like temperature, winds, and moisture.

Climate sensitivity:

Usually used to mean the change in globally averaged surface temperature ∆T that would occur in a model if it were allowed to equilibrate to a forcing ∆F associated with a doubling of CO2. It is sometimes used in a looser fashion to refer to the change in temperature resulting from a change in forcing.

Feedback:

A process in the climate system that can either amplify (“positive feedback”) or diminish (“negative feedback”) a change in climate forcing.

Lapse rate:

A term that refers to the vertical temperature decrease in the atmosphere. When that lapse rate exceeds certain thresholds, convective overturning can occur. Two threshold lapse rates are important. The dry adiabatic lapse rate identifies the rate at which an unsaturated parcel will cool if it is lifted adiabatically. If the environmental lapse rate is larger than the dry adiabatic lapse rate, a parcel lifted adiabatically will gain buoyancy and convective overturning can occur. When saturated air is lifted adiabatically, it will cool at a temperature-dependent rate as phase change occurs. At warm temperatures, the saturated adiabatic lapse rate is less than the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Since the atmosphere will produce overturning to reduce these instabilities associated with buoyant parcels, the lapse rate and water vapor amount play an important role in convection. The moist and dry adiabatic lapse rates explain much of the vertical temperature gradient to lowest order.

Parameterization:

The equations and computer code describing the representation of a particular physical process in a climate model, for example, the representation of convection.

Radiative forcing:

A change altering the energy budget of the climate system usually associated with changes in the atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases and aerosols, or factors like solar variability and volcanic. These changes are expressed in terms of radiative forcing, which is used to compare how a range of human and natural factors drive warming or cooling influences on global climate.

Subgrid scale:

The behavior of a process at time and space scales that are smaller than the model can resolve.

Tropopause:

A permeable boundary separating two layers of the atmosphere: the stratosphere (a relatively stable region above) and the troposphere (a less stable region below where convective overturning often occurs). The tropopause varies quite smoothly in latitude. It is highest in the tropics (18 km) and decreases toward the poles (to 10 km or so).

Weather:

The short-term evolution of our environment.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Sarah Fillmore for her editorial help and my colleagues at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Center for Atmospheric Research for their willingness to share their expertise, knowledge, and model results with me over many years.

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  1. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Dr. Philip J. Rasch

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Correspondence to Philip J. Rasch .

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  1. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, 99352, Washington, USA

    Philip J. Rasch

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Rasch, P.J. (2012). Atmospheric General Circulation Modeling. In: Rasch, P. (eds) Climate Change Modeling Methodology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5767-1_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5767-1_6

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