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THE CLIMATE MODELLING PRIMER fourth edition

Authors:
Kendal Mcguffie
Kendal Mcguffie
Ann Henderson-Sellers at Macquarie University
Ann Henderson-Sellers
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The Climate Modelling Primer Fourth Edition Kendal McGuffie University of Technology Sydney, Australia Ann Henderson-Sellers Macquarie University, Australia Climate modelling affects everyone, everywhere. Today, we all need to know whether and how climate models work; how they have evolved; and how well they are understood by those who build them, the funders who support them, the policy analysts who use them and the communicators who explain their outputs. The Climate Modelling Primer is a completely revised guide to the rules and riddles of climate modelling for those who need to know how modern models work and what they can deliver. The Climate Modelling Primer Fourth Edition engages readers in an interactive experience: making use of internet resources via QR codes that link to talks, simulations, results and assessments. Using these, readers can: • ‘Speed Date’ real climate models • Solve four CSI (climate simulation intrigues) mysteries in every chapter • Meet fascinating climate modellers who have shaped this science • Attempt to ‘validate’ many climate model simulations • Probe significant aspects of important climate modelling papers • Explore concepts with downloadable, easy-to-use climate models • Communicate climate modelling ideas • Draw and analyse feedbacks and ‘wiring’ diagrams. This book encompasses the history of climate modelling and its future; how climate models are used in simulations of past, future and current climates at many scales; the wide range of communication forms employed to share results from climate model simulations with different audiences; the variety of confidence and uncertainty measures associated with climate model outputs and how to interpret them; and the ways in which results from climate models affect twenty-first century policy, laws, international trade and human development. This book’s audience includes all those who wish to understand twenty-first century climate modelling. URL http://www.climatemodellingprimer.net/
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FOURTH EDITION
CLIMATE MODELLING
PRIMER
The
Kendal McGuffie
Ann Henderson-Sellers

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CMP4 Back cover information
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July 2014
Kendal Mcguffie · Ann Henderson-Sellers
... Sx (S/So in Figure 31) due to the runaway feedback glaciation from point A to point B as discussed in Section 4.2 (Figs 25-27). Temperatures remain on this colder path even when Sx is increased again, until reaching point C, which is far above the present solar constant value (McGuffie and Henderson-Sellers, 2014). This is because Earth's global temperature exhibits a hysteresis response for increasing versus decreasing solar radiation forcing that is dependent on the history of the climate system, not simply the governing parameters. ...
... The Fourth Edition, released in 2014, returned to an equator-topole format, providing an Excel module. The primary source of the models developed in this study originated from the Third Edition version.In zero-dimensional models, incoming shortwave radiation and outgoing longwave radiation are balanced through the surface temperature variable, T(Figure 7).In other words, T is the critical dependent variable used to solve the climate equations(McGuffie and Henderson-Sellers, 2014). The change in temperature over time is based upon the differing rate of incoming and outgoing radiation over the area of the planet. ...
Energy Balance Models with Realistic Albedo, Monthly Insolation, Milankovitch Cycles, and Simplified Earth-Like Planetary Modeling
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Dec 2020
Energy balance modeling with simple flows is largely overlooked today in favor of the realism of sophisticated Earth system models. However, much can be learned from simple energy balance models (EBM’s), especially for paleoclimate modeling and for exoplanets. In fact, with some modest adjustments, EBM’s allow for a comparable output model to some general circulation models. Here, the classic Budyko-Sellers one-dimensional energy balance model is revitalized in MATLAB to include zero-dimensional (0D), multiple one-dimensional (1D), and multiple two-dimensional (2D) versions with realistic monthly albedo, monthly insolation, and an algorithm for mean annual insolation for any star-orbiting planet with non-zero obliquity and orbital eccentricity, and a rotation rate that is significantly faster than that of its orbit. The revitalized EBMs are applied to characterize the energy balance of Earth, while also showcasing their applicability for a range of realistic obliquities and orbital eccentricities. The significance of specific variables was tested, such as changes to insolation, latitudinal heat transport, outgoing longwave radiation, initial surface and cloud albedos, initial temperatures, and astronomical parameters. Model results were found to rely most heavily on initial albedo of Earth’s surface and clouds, as well as orbitally forced monthly insolation changes. The goal is to accurately model the energy balance of any planet with simplistic, limited data. In this study, the groundwork is laid for more specific questions to be answered with this catalog of models.
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... Global climate change and its local impact needs to be assessed in a probabilistic way under explicit consideration of anthropogenic forcings of the climate system, which so far, is only sufficiently covered by GCM experiments and GCM-forced modeling approaches (IPCC 2013). Particularly during the IPCC process, increasing knowledge of the climate system and growing computing capacities fostered the further development from pure atmospheric circulation models to complex Earth System Models (ESMs), capable of representing a range of processes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land surface (Cubasch et al. 2013;McGuffie & Henderson-Sellers 2014). Despite significant scientific and technological progress, direct applications of GCM outputs depend highly upon their regional fidelity, which is especially limited over High Asia, where the results of most state-of-the-art CMIP5 members are distinctly biased (Hasson et al. 2016). ...
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... Focusing on only the most essential features they can help to understand the basic laws that govern the dynamics of various parameters of the climate. Of course, by construction, they are unable to predict the temperature changes in a great detail (as opposed to General Climate Models (GCMs)) but still are invaluable tool in understanding the Earth system evolution [22]. Their virtue is that they usually are low-dimensional dynamical systems that can be understood by analytical or numerical means without the use of the supercomputers. ...
Asymptotic analysis of internal relaxation-oscillations in a conceptual climate model
Preprint
Full-text available
  • Feb 2019
We construct a dynamical system based on the KCG (K\"all\'en, Crafoord, Ghil) conceptual climate model which includes the ice-albedo and precipitation-temperature feedbacks. Further, we classify the stability of various critical points of the system and identify a parameter which change generates a Hopf bifurcation. This gives rise to a stable limit cycle around a physically interesting critical point. Moreover, it follows from the general theory that the periodic orbit exhibits relaxation-oscillations which are a characteristic feature of the Pleistocene ice-ages. We provide an asymptotic analysis of their behaviour and derive a formula for the period along with several estimates. They, in turn, are in a decent agreement with paleoclimatic data and are independent of any parametrization used. Whence, our simple but robust model shows that a climate may exhibit internal relaxation-oscillations without any external forcing and for a wide range of parameters.
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... For more information on climate change in general, Eggleton (Eggleton 2014) is a great point to start. McGuffie and Stocker are good entry points into climate change modeling (Stocker 2011; McGuffie 2014). ...
The Impacts of Climate Change on African Cities
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Feb 2015
Changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme events have significant impacts and are one of the most serious challenges faced by society in coping with a changing climate. During the last ten years, floods have caused more damage than in the previous 30 years; for example, a flood event of 22 December 2011 in Dar es Salaam led to 20 deaths, considerable damage and loss of livelihoods. Moreover, higher temperatures have led to a high rate of evaporation and very dry conditions in some areas of the world. More generally, there is evidence of a global increase in the occurrence of severe weather events. Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and variability, a situation aggravated by a low adaptive capacity. Adaptation policies and actions will be most effective if based on the best knowledge concerning present and future climate. This chapter aims to highlight and quantify the impact of climate change on the African cities Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Douala (Cameroon), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Saint Louis (Senegal), through the analyses of observed data and model projected changes in temperature and rainfall, synthesizing the results of the CLUVA project (Climate Change and Urban Vulnerability in Africa). The climate projections were performed following emissions scenarios prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports, using a suite of global climate models and downscaling techniques. The aim of the project is to evaluate the impact of climate change on urban scale and, consequently, the possible works of adaptation. For this purpose, innovative downscaling techniques of climate projections were developed in order to achieve results at the urban scale.
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Selection of Global Climate Models
Chapter
  • Jan 2018
This chapter describes Global Climate Models (GCMs), limitations and uncertainties associated with the formulation of GCMs due to the effect of aerosols which are differently parameterized in GCMs, initial and boundary conditions for each GCM, parameters and model structure of GCMs, randomness, future greenhouse gas emissions, and scenarios leading to significant variability across model simulations of future climate. This chapter discussed the necessity of performance indicators for evaluating GCMs and explained mathematical description of these indicators. It also emphasized on normalization approach, weight computing techniques such as entropy and rating, ranking approaches, namely, compromise programming, cooperative game theory, TOPSIS, weighted average, PROMETHEE, and fuzzy TOPSIS. Spearman rank correlation which measures consistency in ranking pattern and group decision-making that aggregates individual rankings obtained by different techniques to form a single group preference is also part of this chapter. Ensembling methodology of GCMs is also discussed. Reader is expected to understand various uncertainties associated, role of decision-making techniques for ranking of GCMs by studying this chapter.
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