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Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling to Support Climate Change Assessment Activities (1998) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A - Letter from Barnett, Randall, Semtner, and Somerville
Pages 31-36

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From page 31...
... General circulation models of both the atmosphere and the ocean were first developed in the United States. Today, however, as the generation of American scientists who pioneered climate modeling approaches 31
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From page 32...
... 2. THREE OPTIONS FOR PROGRESS Option 1: Further increase funding at existing modeling centers The government might simply increase the funding and thus the level of effort at one or more of the existing climate modeling centers.
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From page 33...
... CHAMMP, which is distributed over multiple laboratories and universities, has successfully brought together specialists in ocean/atmosphere processes, numerical methods, and computer applications. Under the auspices of CHAMMP, we have seen the development of a close collaboration involving NCAR, GFDL and several university groups with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to implement two different oceanic general circulation models and an atmospheric general circulation model on massively parallel computers.
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From page 34...
... This model development research should not be centralized or regimented and need not be based directly on use of the National Climate Model itself, because the best new ideas can come from anyone, anywhere. In particular, model development research should continue to occur both in national laboratories and in universities.
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From page 35...
... These smaller efforts would be arranged more informally, essentially through the standard proposal and peer review procedure, but we think that it is important to acknowledge explicitly that such small projects can and should make important contributions to the overall national effort. Tier 3: Research on climate variability Tier 3 would consist of a strong program to explore climate variability systematically, based on a hierarchy of models and statistical methods, and centered around model applications and understanding of the basic physics of climate processes as represented through the development of simplified models, rather than numerical model development.
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From page 36...
... would soon have an officially sanctioned, world-class National Climate Model, supporting a large user community and producing results needed by policy makers and others. Second, a system of designated Academic Model Development Centers would be put into place, and a formal mechanism would be set up to ensure that high-quality new ideas are promptly implemented in the National Climate Model.
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Key Terms

  • national climate
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  • modeling program
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  • climate variability
  • model applications
  • modeling centers
  • performing climate
  • modeling simply

  • pioneered climate
  • climate researchers
  • decentralized national
  • land surface
  • little interaction

  • judiciously identifying
  • eventually extending
  • maximize feedback
  • modeling research
  • distributed throughout

  • formal mechanism
  • designated national
  • proud history
  • modeling center
  • modeling approaches


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