High-resolution simulations of global climate, part 2: effects of increased greenhouse cases

PDF: http://data.dhkim.info/monograph/CD/5VPMD83QRU82R48Q.pdf

Article  

  Climate Dynamics
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Heidelberg
ISSN: 0930-7575 (Paper) 1432-0894 (Online)
DOI: 10.1007/s00382-003-0340-6
Issue: Volume 21, Numbers 5-6

Date:  November 2003
Pages: 391 - 404  
High-resolution simulations of global climate, part 2: effects of increased greenhouse cases
B. Govindasamy1 , P. B. Duffy1 and J. Coquard1

(1)  Climate and Carbon Cycle Modelling Group, Atmospheric Science Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA 94550, USA,  


B. Govindasamy
Email: bala@llnl.gov

Received: 8 July 2002  Accepted: 17 April 2003  Published online: 8 July 2003

Abstract    We report results from the highest-resolution simulations of global warming yet performed with an atmospheric general circulation model. We compare the climatic response to increased greenhouse gases of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) climate model, CCM3, at T42 and T170 resolutions (horizontal grid spacing of 300 and 75 km respectively). All simulations use prescribed sea surface temperatures (SST). Simulations of the climate of 2100 ad use SSTs based on those from NCAR coupled model, Climate System Model (CSM). We find that the global climate sensitivity and large-scale patterns of climate change are similar at T42 and T170. However, there are important regional scale differences that arise due to better representation of topography and other factors at high resolution. Caution should be exercised in interpreting specific features in our results both because we have performed climate simulations using a single atmospheric general circulation model and because we used with prescribed sea surface temperatures rather than interactive ocean and sea-ice models.