Climate Models: what are their use and limitations?


Climate modelling as for its latest formulation is the science of simulating the Earth's climate system through the use of a supercomputer capable of resolving simultaneously hundreds of thousands of physical, geological and chemical formulas which govern the climate processes occurring among ocean, land, cryosphere and atmosphere (National Centre for Atmospheric Science).

Climate models assist decision-making in terms of providing probable future projections or scientific hypothesis outcomes of climate processes based on diverse feedbacks. In such way, they represent an instrument of information during the outlining of adaptation policies as well as supporting arguments in attribution science (Harper 2018).

The measurement of the atmosphere generally implies a degree of uncertainty coming from the chaotic nature of atmospheric flow, which must be limited by estimating a degree of variability and uncertainty in the models' forecasts. Moreover, climate models inherently present to an extent spatial and temporal limitations of sampling provided by the observing instruments themselves along with the approximations resulting from the use of parameterization at sub-grid scale (McFarlane 2008). Finally, the solutions to the mathematical laws which make climate processes explicit are still unknown to us, forcing scientists to solve the equations approximately (Carbon Brief 2018).

Climate models may present different outcomes for some variables or/and locations. This diversity in results is a consequence of several factors, such as the choice of parameterizability of climate processes (McFarlane 2008), the limitations of observing data and computer power which impact the spatial and temporal resolution, time steps implemented to cut time at appropriate intervals in order to manage the calculations, bias corrections which must be considered when applying global outcomes to local processes (Carbon Brief 2018).

The extensive validation and continuous improvement of climate models gives me enough trust into climate models to confidently utilize them for probable projections of future climate scenarios.


References:

Lauren Harper (2018), What Are Climate Models and How Accurate Are They?, Columbia Climate School. Published on: May 18 2018. Accessed on January 6 2023.

Bader et al. (2008), Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations, U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

McFarlane, N. (2011), Parameterization: representing key processes in climate models without resolving them, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 2.

CarbonBrief. (2018). ‘Q&A: How do climate models work?’  

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