What are Climate Models?
Climate Model is a set of simulation techniques that are used to predict the changes in earth’s climate when certain set of parameters are changed e.g. pollution, carbon emission, natural disturbances etc. These climate models are developed and used by climatologists for their study of climate changes.
Unlike scientists, climatologists can’t just go out and do tests and experiments for analysis. Climatologists use climate models to justify their theories about projected changes in climate. By using these models, they are able to predict how hot the temperature would be, how rapidly will glaciers melt, how much will be the sea level rise, how much temperature rise will be and etc..
How Climate Models are developed?
Climate models are basically a set of mathematical tools that relates the physical, chemical and biological changes in the system and produce the results based on predefined mathematical instructions and calculations. The basic element of a climate model are:
Initial Conditions: Initial physical conditions are fed into the model such as temperature, greenhouse gas concentrations, solar intensity, absorbing capacity of gases etc..
Cause and Effect Relationship: Relationships between different events and their feedback to the system are defined and fed to the model.
Heat Transfer Factors: These includes the transfer of heat between different layers of atmosphere. It also includes the atmospheric and ocean circulation dynamics. Biological factors like plant, algae growth etc. are also taken into account.
Modeling External Factors: There are numerous other factors which can refine the outcome of a climate model like the presence of aerosols, clouds, dust etc. These external factors are also a part of climate model.
Running Simulation: After the sufficient data has been fed and factors co-related in a climate model, its time to predict the changes that will happen when certain parameters are changed.
The model once run will show various scenarios that are possible when parameters are changed in the model e.g climatologists can predict the scenario when greenhouse gas emissions will increase.