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Abstract
Climate models play a critical role in understanding Earth’s climate system and how it may change over time. Hans von Storch provides a scientifically rigorous and systematic introduction to climate modeling as an essential scientific tool. The article explains how climate models are built on fundamental physical principles, particularly the conservation of mass, energy, and momentum, and how these principles are implemented in numerical models through discretization and parameterization. It introduces the key concepts of climate modeling, ranging from simple energy balance models to more advanced models that simulate interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces, and ice-covered regions. In addition, the article discusses the importance of internal variability as a major source of uncertainty in climate projections. Finally, it explains how climate models are used to study human-induced climate change and to develop scenarios for future climate conditions.
References
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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06381-1
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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-58528-9
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https://doi.org/10.1080/14786449608620846
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