1997: Modeling the Earth's Climate

Introduction

The motivation for this program is three-fold:

1. The participants of the ICP would like to extend the research program to the home campuses and schools, which would become satellite programs to the GISS operation. To this end, the students will be working on
   • Research associated with Model development (Kirk, Tom, Alexandra, and Kwaku)
   • Development of a Climate Change Index. (Josh and Kwaku)
   • Toy model courseware being developed for the ICP (Dwayne)
2. The outcomes of the research activity will be incorporated into the curriculum at the college, and shared with the local high schools to be incorporated in their curricula. For example, at York College a course in meteorology will be taught as an interdisciplinary atmospheric science course, with teaching responsibilities shared by a physicist and a geologis0t. This course will incorporate materials from the research conducted through the ICP into the syllabus.
3. On a broader scale, the power of the computer and Internet connectivity will be brought to the teaching throughout the science program in the colleges and High schools. To this end, Sam and John are working on creating "toy models" auto tutorial computer courseware. These modules will use the number crunching performance, and visualization capabilities of today's computers to illustrate fundamental atmospheric processes.

Description of Plan

The research area of this group is the evaluation of the GISS General Circulation model (GCM). The GCM is a computer simulation applying the laws of physics and chemistry to the atmosphere, which is a continuous medium, but which, for calculational purposes is divided into a finite number of 3 dimensional grid boxes of latitude and longitude in the horizontal dimensions and altitude in the vertical. The inadequacies of the model are due to:

1. An imperfect understanding and implementation of the laws of physics and chemistry.
2. Resolution problems having to do with the size of the grid boxes. The more boxes, the better the resolution, but the more expensive in computer time
3. The intrinsically chaotic behavior of the climate, whereby even if we could totally eliminate problems 1 and 2, the natural variability of the climate limits our ability to predict it.

The scientific questions addressed in our project are:

1. How do changes in the vertical resolution of the GISS global climate model affect its performance?
   • Analyze ensemble of model runs
   • Which variables are sensitive to vertical resolution?
   • Look for significant improvements in variables as model resolution is increased
2. How can we define and compute a "Climate Change Index" that measures climate change in the way that ordinary people would perceive it?
   • Which variables most affect humans?
   • How can they be best combined into an index?
   • Test the index with observations, post on Web
   • Use the index with 2 x CO2 simulation--how will we perceive future climate change?
3. How do large high-pressure wave patterns lead to drought?
   • Why do these wave patterns exist?
   • Which atmospheric quantities best define events?
   • What are their spatial/temporal patterns in real life?
   • How well does the GISS GCM simulate them?
4. How are severe extratropical cyclones related to precipitation?
   • How best identify severe storms and precip events?
   • Test the criteria with real-life observations
   • Compare to GISS GCM results--how well is the model capturing these events?

Learning Outcomes

The students will augment their computer skills, particularly as to the acquisition and analysis of data. They will be exposed to the rigors of realistic research. They will improve their math skills by the necessity of applying statistical analysis to the data.

They will be exposed to basic physics principles and meteorology concepts such as:

Newton's Laws, Vectors, Electromagnetic Radiation, Wave Propagation, Coriolis Force, Ideal gas laws, Conservation of Energy, High and Low pressure areas, Jet Streams, Rossby Waves, Adiabatic Lapse Rate, Isobars, Isotherms.

The Toy-model animations will be made available via the Web for incorporation into school and college curricula. For example, physics and astronomy modules are currently implemented at York, and geostrophic flow models are currently being developed for meteorology curricula.

Specific Responsibilities

Sam and John: General leadership of the three areas of activity. In particular, the development of the Toy Model Software and associated tutorials.

Kirk, Ishram, Kwaiku: Model development - Validation of the vertical resolution experimental runs, by comparing diagnostics such as temperature, precipitation, specific humidity, Energy balance etc, between the various versions of the model and observations.

Ishram, Kwaiku, Dwayne: Analysis of drought producing wave patterns in Model and observations.

Josh, Ishram, Kwaiku: Development of a Climate Index data set

Dwayne: Participate in developing Toy model software, particularly for Rossby waves.

Alexandra: Study relationship between Cyclones and precipitation events.

Project Timeline

The courseware modules and associated writeups will serve as background materials to the research project, as well as significant educational activities for enhancing student knowledge.

i) Students will acquire model and observational data.
ii) They will apply the software tools to compare these data sets
iii) These comparisons will be discussed with the scientific members of the group with the dual aim of furthering understanding of the model's performance and influencing change in subsequent versions of the model.
iv) Some of the tools used for this analysis are: Spyglass, NCAR graphics, IDL, Toolbook, spreadsheets, FORTRAN, and C

Research Data

Model Data: SI95 (B177AM9) and variations thereof, especially varying the number of layers in the altitude dimension.

Observational Data: ERBE, Legates and Oort

The Climate Index research will be performed by Josh who will be making available Web data sets of Climate diagnostics such as temperature, humidity, winds, extreme events etc. This index will be validated with observational data as well as Model output.

Input to the ICP Web Site

One outcome of the model development work will be a comprehensive Web curriculum devoted to developing students' understanding of what a GCM is, how it works, and how and why modifications to a GCM are made. This curriculum will be a valuable resource to all newcomers to the subject of numerical modeling, from high-school students to ordinary Web "netizens" to, potentially, government policy makers seeking a greater understanding of these crucial scientific tools.

Students will be able to be perform research tasks via the World Wide Web. Animations and data sets created by the animations will be accessible via the ICP home page. In coordination with GISS scientists, students will be able to analyze the results of GCM model development experiments via the Web and can provide input regarding future avenues of model development.