A Climate Modelling Primer

by Kendal McGuffie, Ann Henderson-Sellers

Climate Modelling is a young discipline, not yet thirty years old. Despite this youth, it has great responsibility thrust upon it by the ratification of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change. The ultimate objective of this Convention is to achieve ?stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system? (Article 2). This volume is designed to explain the basis and mechanisms of all types of physically based climate models and to prepare the reader for the climate modelling literature. The book will assist the reader in understanding the relative complexities and applicabilities of the whole range of climate models without needing to follow each step or parameterization in a particular model. In this new edition, the text has been completely revised and augmented with information from the IPCC Second Scientific Assessment. The latest techniques for modelling the coupled biosphere?ocean?atmosphere system are also considered. The final chapter includes details of projects which evaluate and exploit the results of climate models. The accompanying CD contains a suite of resources for those wishing to learn more about climate modelling. Source code and results for a range of model types will allow readers to make their own climate simulations ranging from global glaciations to tropical deforestation.

Genres: Climate Change

268 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 1997

Reviews

[Sarah Clement]

A surprisingly easy to read primer on climate modelling that even I could understand. I am not a modeller, nor do I intend to be one, but I wanted to better understand how it works because I do use the outputs of climate modelling quite a lot. This book is a great overview for students as well, and I drew on it quite a bit in my lecture on climate change modelling. The writing in this book is simple and even entertaining in bits - quite a feat for a book on climate modelling. The book is full of practical advice and exercises, and you can download some software and a workbook to use with students in class. I haven't tried any of these, but my quick browse through the workbook suggests that these could save lecturers quite a lot of work if they are teaching climate modelling in class.

[Daniel Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of climate modeling, with a mixture of easy-to-grasp ideas and more difficult concepts. I think I'll read it again after taking a year's worth of atmospheric science classes.