us to approximate the solution to such problems using a discrete state machine--a digital computer.
6.2.0 General Circulation Models
Contemporary computational climate modeling has evolved from the combined insights of Bjerknes and Richardson. Designers of high-level Coupled General Circulation Models (CGCMs) build on developments in atmospheric physics and fluid dynamics. In atmospheric circulation models, the primitive equations track six basic variables across three dimensions[1]: surface pressure, horizontal wind components (in the x and y directions), temperature, moisture, and geopotential height. Oceanic circulation models are considerably more varied than their atmospheric cousins, reflecting the fact that oceanic models’ incorporation into high-level climate models is a fairly recent innovation (at least compared to the incorporation of atmospheric models). Until fairly recently, even sophisticated GCMs treated the oceans as a set of layered “slabs,” similar to the way the atmosphere is treated in simple energy balance models (see Chapter Four). The simple “slab” view of the ocean treats it as a series of three-dimensional layers stacked on top of one another, each with a particular heat capacity, but with minimal (or even no) dynamics linking them. Conversely (but just as simply), what ocean modelers call the “swamp model” of the ocean treats it as an infinitely thin “skin” on the surface of the Earth, with currents and dynamics that contribute to the state of the atmosphere but with no heat capacity of its own. Early CGCMs thus incorporated ocean modeling only as a kind of adjunct to the more sophisticated atmospheric models: the primary focus was on impact that
- ↑ Ibid., p. 178
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