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Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base (1992) / Chapter Skim
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13 Model Performance
Pages 111-116

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From page 111...
... climatic changes that would accompany more realistic greenhouse gas accumulation scenarios, they do allow a means of testing, understanding, and comparing atmospheric GCMs. The IPCC scientific assessment (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1990)
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From page 112...
... The institutional designations are United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) , NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL)
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From page 113...
... Relative to clear skies, Figure 12.2 shows rather modest positive cloud feedback in the GFDL model, whereas there is a very strong positive feedback in the GISS model. That these two models agree well in Figure 13.1 is at least partially due to compensatory differences in snow-ice albedo feedback.
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From page 114...
... Note that the finite difference models exhibit a considerably stronger correlation, and there is no obvious explanation for this. The primary point of Figure 13.3 is that global precipitation change and global warming are, as would be expected, strongly coupled.
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From page 115...
... Regional changes in soil moisture are even more difficult to predict, because soil moisture is the difference between precipitation and evaporation plus runoff, and errors in the change of any of these quantities will produce magnified errors in the fractional change of soil moisture. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, persuasive projections of future climatic changes will require the availability of reliable coupled atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere models.
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From page 116...
... 1990. Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment, J
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Key Terms

  • cloud feedback
  • precipitation change
  • global precipitation
  • albedo feedback
  • ipcc scientific

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  • change versus
  • soil moisture
  • comparable global
  • giss model

  • versus global
  • global mean
  • intergovernmental panel
  • warming results
  • australian bureau

  • horizontal resolution
  • respective amplification
  • atmospheric research
  • feedback amplifications
  • difference models

  • climate models
  • considerable importance
  • meteorology research
  • fractional change
  • reasons discussed

  • gcms produce
  • opposite occurs
  • warming simulation
  • temperature projections
  • surface evaporation


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