Dear Researcher,
Global Climate Models (GCMs) of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) are numerical models that represent the various physical systems of the Earth's climate with respect to the surface of the land, oceans, atmosphere, and cryosphere, and these are employed to provide likely changes in future climate projections. I wanted to know what are the initial and lateral boundary conditions used while developing the models.
Sincerely,
Aman Srivastava
Global Climate Models (GCMs) are complex numerical models used to simulate the Earth's climate system. The latest generation of GCMs used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) includes a wide range of models with varying resolutions, parameterizations, and boundary conditions. The specific initial and lateral boundary conditions used by each model depend on its design and configuration, but here are some general guidelines:
Initial Conditions:
The initial conditions of a GCM refer to the state of the climate system at the beginning of a simulation. The initial conditions typically include the atmospheric and oceanic conditions such as temperature, humidity, pressure, and winds, as well as the initial state of sea ice, land surface properties, and greenhouse gas concentrations.
For CMIP6-based GCMs, the initial conditions are usually taken from a pre-industrial control simulation, where the model is run for several hundred years without any external forcing, to allow the climate to reach a stable state.
Some models may also use observational data such as ocean temperatures and sea ice concentration to initialize their simulations.
Lateral Boundary Conditions:
The lateral boundary conditions of a GCM refer to the conditions at the edges of the model domain, where the model interacts with the outside world.
For CMIP6-based GCMs, the lateral boundary conditions are usually prescribed using outputs from other models, such as reanalysis data or output from previous versions of the same model.
In some cases, the boundary conditions may be nudged towards observed values to improve the realism of the simulation.
The specific boundary conditions used by each model depend on its design and configuration, but in general, they are chosen to ensure that the model produces realistic simulations of the global climate system.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Remote Sensing