Climate Change and General

Circulation Model

Dr. Subimal Ghosh

Assistant Professor
Dept. of Civil Engg.
IIT Bombay
E-mail: subimal@civil.iitb.ac.in

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change
Scientific intergovernmental body set up by the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by
the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP).
The scientists: hundreds of scientists all over the
world contribute to the work of the IPCC as authors,
contributors and reviewers
Provides guidelines to perform research on Climate
Change.
Won 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Climate Change: Global Warming

Eleven of the last twelve years (19952006) rank among the 12

warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature
(since 1850).
The updated 100-year linear trend (1906 to 2005) is 0.74C [0.56C to
0.92C]
The total temperature increase from 18501899 to 20012005 is
0.76C [0.57C to 0.95C].

Temperature Change (C)

Warming in Northern and Southern

Hemisphere
1.0

Northern vs. Southern Latitude

0.8
0.6

Northern Hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere

Land vs. Ocean

Land
Ocean

0.4
0.2

0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6

1920

1960
Year

2000

1920

1960
Year

2000

Temperature Changes in 1901-2005

Global Warming: Causes

External Causes
Milankovitch Variation
Solar Activity
Others

Internal Factors
Human Induced Changes (Anthropogenic)
Natural Changes

Milankovitch Variation
Astronomical theory of climate variations.
Relation of climatic sciences with changing
parameters of Earths orbit around the Sun.
Classified into 3 types
Changes in Eccentricity
Changes in Obliquity
Changes in Orbital Precession

Changes in Eccentricity
MaximumE: 0.061
Minimum E: 0.005

Higher the E, lower the flux.

Cycle: 100 ky
Present E value = 0.017
Results in changes in incident
flux of +0.014% to -0.017%

Obliquity
Obliquity: Tilt in Earths axis, varies from 22 0
to 24.50.
Cycle: about 41 ky.
Results in change of seasonality.
Total received radiation does not alter.

Precession

Apehelion

Wobble of the earths tilt

Cycle: 22 ky
No change in total
radiation
Changes occur in spatial
and temporal distribution.

Perihelion

Milankovitch Variation and Global

Temperature
Precession
(22 ky)
Obliquity
(41 ky)
Eccentricity
(100 ky)

Temperature

1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0
Age (kya)

Solar Activity and Other Factors

Solar Activity: Sunspot Cycle.
Sunspots: huge magnetic storms that are seen
as dark (cooler) areas on the Sun's surface.
Climate variability is observed to be correlated
with sunspot cycle although no mechanistic
link is observed.
Other external factors include collisions with
comets and very large meteoritic impacts.

Human Induced Changes

(Anthropogenic)
Greenhouse Gas Emission
Land-use change : Rapid Urbanization,
deforestation and Industrialization.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse Effect

Greenhouse Effect (contd.)

Atmospheric Gases
Nitrogen (N2)
Oxygen (O2)

NonGreenhouse
Gases
99%

Water (H2O)
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)

Greenhouse
Gases
1%

Concentration of Greenhouse Gases

(CO2)

Carbon (109 metric tons)

Worldwide Carbon Emission

8
7
6
5

Total
Liquid fuel
Solid fuel
Gas fuel

4
3
2
1
0
1750

1800

1850
1900
Year

1950

2000

Concentration of Greenhouse Gases

(CH4)

Concentration of Greenhouse Gases

(N2O)

Role of Aerosol
Suspension of fine solid or
liquid droplets in a gas.
Source: Industrial pollution,
burning of fossil fuel and
biomass.
Acts as additional cloud
condensation nuclei.
Increases reflectivity of the
cloud with cooling effect.

Role of Ozone
Stratospheric Ozone:
Absorbs ultra violet rays.
Has a cooling effect.

Tropospheric Ozone:
Acts as a greenhouse gas.
Has a warming effect.

Natural Causes
Volcanic Eruptions:
Produces Aerosols
Reduces the amount of solar radiation
reaching the Earth's surface
Reduces temperatures in the troposphere
Results in change of atmospheric circulation
patterns.

Natural Causes (Ocean Circulation)

Change in ocean circulation results in climate change.

Summary of Radiative Forcing

Temperature increases are human-induced

The anthropogenic climate change fingerprint
Globally averaged surface air temperature
1.2

Observations
Natural forcings
All forcings

Anomalies

0.8
0.4
0.0

Simulations carried out using NCAR, ORNL,

and NERSC computing platforms

-0.4

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

Slide Courtesy: Jim Hack, ORNL (IPCC AR4, 2007)

Temperature Change in India

Increase Rate: 0.40 C/ Century

Implications on Hydrology

Overall idea: Increase in temperature increase in

evapotranspiration more cloud formation
increase in rainfall

Real situation: Not so simple guided by spatial

distribution of pressure, wind velocity etc.

Changes in rainfall: not always increasing in all

locations and non consistent

Implications of changes: estimation of design

hydrologic variables

Earlier concepts on hydrologic design: Based on

return period assumption: stationarity

In changed Scenario: Stationarity is Dead

There is a need to model changed scenarios

29

Modeling Climate Change

Development of climate change needs understanding of climate system in
terms of:
Radiation: the way in which the input and absorption of solar radiation
and the emission of infrared radiation are handled.
Dynamics: the movement of energy around the globe by winds and
ocean currents.
Surface Processes: inclusion of the effects of sea and land-ice, snow,
vegetation and the resultant change in emissivity and surface-atmosphere
energy exchange.
Chemistry: The chemical composition of the atmosphere and the
interaction with other components.
Resolution in both time and space: The time step and the spatial grid
size for solving climate models

Climate Models
Energy balance models (EBMs): models considers radiation process, may
predict the variation of surface temperature with latitude.
One-dimensional Radiative-Convective models (RCs): computes the
vertical temperature profile by explicit modelling of the radiative
processes with convective-adjustment.
Two-dimensional Statistical dynamical models (2D-SDs): they deal
with surface processes and dynamics in a zonally averaged framework and
have a vertically resolved atmosphere
General Circulation Models (GCMs): these are three dimensional
nature models of atmosphere/ocean with all the physics and dynamics
included

Energy Balance Models (EBMs)

Zero-dimensional EBM
Reflected
Solar Rad
R2S.
Solar
Radiation
R2S

Earth

Emitted Infrared
4R2Te4

2
2
2
4
The energy balance equation: R S R S 4R Te

(1 ) S 4Te4

S = solar "constant" =
1370 W/m2 /K4
= albedo
= 5.67 x 10-8 W/m2 K4
(Stefan-Boltzman
Constant)
e = Earth's temperature in
Kelvin
Results in Te=255K
Green house = +33 K
Total = 288 K

Incorporating greenhouse effect the equation can be modified to:

(1 ) S 4Te4 where, =Factor accounting for greenhouse effect

EBMs (contd..)
One-dimensional EBM
Zonal (based on latitude) averaged energy balance
model
Governing Equation:

Si 1 i Ri Fi

1-D Radiative Convective Model

Dimension is vertical
Radiative Modeling

S=S/4=343 Wm-2

1-D Radiative Convective Model

(contd..)
Convective adjustment
Temperature reduces with height.
Generated convective heat transfer.
Should be coupled with radiative model.
Such coupling or adjustment is known as
convective adjustment

Two-Dimensional Statistical
Dynamical Models
General circulation in this case is assumed to be composed
mainly of flow between latitudes which is characterized by
using empirical and theoretical formulations
a set of statistics summarizes wind speed and direction
an eddy diffusion coefficient is used which govern EBM
transport.

General Circulation Model (GCM)

3-D modeling considers all geophysical
laws and dynamics.
Considered as complete model.
Sets of equations considered in GCM
Conservation of mass
Conservation of momentum
Conservation of energy
Conservation of water vapor
Equation of state
Ideal Gas Law

GCM (contd..)
A complete GCM solves 1000-1600 coupled
differential equations.
It takes 35 efficient man year to develop a
GCM.
For a single run of GCM by supercomputer it
takes weeks to a month.
India, till now, has not developed any IPCC
recognized GCM.

Types of GCM
Atmospheric GCM: considers atmospheric
processes.
Oceanic GCM: considers oceanic processes.
Coupled GCM: couples both the GCMs.

What a GCM simulate?

Simulate time series of climate variables globally, accounting
for effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Can simulate large scale circulation patterns and climate
variables globally.
Can not produce hydrologic variables such as precipitation
very well.
Works in a large spatial grid, and therefore fails to model local
scale processes.

What is CMIP?

CMIP: Coupled Model Intercomparison

Project
Established by Working Group on
Coupled Modeling (WGCM) under
World Climate Research Programme
(WCRP)
Provides community based
infrastructure in support of climate
model diagnosis, validation,
intercomparison, documentation and
data access.
It is an effort and maintained by
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis
and Intercomparison (PCMDI)
Funded by the Regional and Global
Climate Modeling (RGCM) Program of
the Climate and Environment Sciemce
Division of the US Department of
Energy.

Source: Taylor et al. (2012), BAMS

CMIP3 Scenarios

Scenarios are alternative images of how the future might unfold and are an
appropriate tool with which to analyze how driving forces may influence future
emission outcomes.

CMIP5
Objectives
Evaluating how realistic the models are in simulating
the recent past
Provide projections of future climate for near term (till
2035) and long term (2100 and beyond)
To understand some of the factors responsible for
differences in model projections, including quantifying
some key feedbacks
Projections
Decadal
Short term
Long term

Representative Concentration
Pathways (RCP) and ECP scenarios

Historical Run
Baseline simulations for model evaluation
Duration: 1850-2005
To evaluate model against present climate and observed
climate change
Provides initial conditions for future scenario experiments
These runs need initial spin up runs (minimum of 450
years runs) runs number depends on this
Notation: r i p r denotes initial condition, i denotes
the way initial condition is being posed, and p denotes
the physics used; , and denote corresponding
number respectively

Long term run

Minimum
duration
2006-2100
May be
extended till
2300
As per RCP
scenarios

Typical GCM Simulation for Indian

Monsoon Rainfall

Observed

Simulated

Downscaling
Impacts Assessment

GCM
Output

Large Scale
Climate
Variables

Regional
Scale Hydrometeorologi
c Variables,
e.g., Rainfall
in a city

Downscaling
Statistical Downscaling
Dynamic Downscaling
49

Drought Analysis
Agricultural
Management
Water Demand
Availability Analysis
Water Resources
Management
Hydraulic Structure
Design
Ecological Impacts
Risk and Vulnerability
Assessment of
Extreme Events

Typical Example (UK Winter

Precipitation) [Maraun et al., 2010]

Thank You