Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling to Support Climate Change Assessment Activities (1998) / Chapter Skim
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Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling
Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling
Pages 7-29
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position of leadership in the development, improvement, and application of climate models had eroded. They offered various options for progress in these areas, emphasizing a wellcoordinated, distributed national climate modeling program.
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, which is largely based on the threat GHGs pose to the global climate. Such an agreement would have significant economic and national security implications, and therefore any national policy decisions regarding this issue should rely in part on the best possible suite of scenarios from climate models.
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and adaptations that were made in response to these forecasts, highlight the societal value of climate forecasting.4 The benefits that are being experienced as a result of this capability, underscore the potential utility of the development of long-term climate change scenarios, In particular, because future, Tong-term, anthropogenic 3 In highlighting the U.S. intermediate-level modeling expertise, it should not be overlooked that several foreign, intermediate modeling efforts, such as those of the ECMWF in weather forecasting, are at the cutting edge, sometimes leading those of the United States.
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That initial productivity has been difficult to sustain because of a lack of coordination and availability of the requisite computational and human resources.s This may explain in part why, in contrast to some of the foreign modeling centers, U.S. modeling centers have found it difficult to perform coupled atmosphere-ocean climate change scenario simulations at the spatial resolutions (e.g., finer than 500 km x 800 km)
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* F 280x420 / 19 140x140 / 20 HC 1998 20-25 NEC SX4 / 32 1.5 days 310x310 / 17 220 x 55 / 25 ABOM 1998 20-25 NEC SX4 / 32 3 days 280x280 / 32 200x200 / 29 CCCMA 1998 75 Fujitsu VPP / 116 14 days 200x200 / 31 56x56 / 20 ECMWFG 2000 1000 Currently unspecified 8 hours 140x140 / 18 30x30 / 20 ACPI 2001 10000 Currently unspecified 8 hours 70x70 / 18 15x15 / 20 ACPI 2003 40000 Currently unspecified 8 hours 30x30 / 18 9x9 / 20 ACPI PSU = Penn State Earth System Science Center; NCAR = National Center for Atmospheric Research; GFDL = Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory; HC = Hadley Centre, U.K.; ABOM = Australian Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre; CCCMA = Canadian Center for Climate Modeling arid Analysis; ECMWF = European Center for Medium-Rar~ge Weather Forecasting; DOE = Department of Energy, Los Alamos; ACPI = Accelerated Climate Prediction Initiative Individuals who supplied infonnation for this table include David Anderson, David Bader, Bill Buzbee, Robert Malone, William Peterson, Ronald Stouffer, Vince Wayland, Francis Zwiers, and members of the CRC.
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In other words, not only would the United States benefit from enhancements in its modeling capabilities but the international community would benefit as well. In addition to the need for simulations produced by different climate models, estimates also need to be produced of the stochastic nature of climate change within a given model, i.e., ensembles of simulations, using slightly different initial conditions.
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U.S. climate modeling centers currently do not possess the computational resources required for these types of simulations.
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If U.S. scientists are not directly involved in the high-end modeling itself, they may miss opportunities to gain valuable insights into the underlying processes that are critical to subsequent modeling investigations.
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PRIORITY SETTING The information gathered from active climate researchers and agency program managers at the CRC/USGCRP modeling forum indicated that climate modeling priorities are established primarily within individual agencies, specifically, DOE, NASA, NOAA, and NSF. Individual agency program managers appear to be aware of modeling activities in other agencies through informal personal exchanges of information and through the USGCRP integrated Modeling and Prediction Working Group (IMAP)
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COORDINATION The lack of national coordination and funding, and thus sustained interest, are substantial reasons why the United States is no longer in the lead in high-end climate modeling.7 Many scientists at the time of the forum believed that the current major U.S. modeling centers were not adequately responding to the challenges of integrating component models of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and atmospheric chemistry, that are needed for climate change scenario studies.
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framework that links the components of the system. It is possible that movement towards increased modularity among mode} components and a common component interface, sometimes referred to as a "flux coupler," might speed improvement of these comprehensive climate models.
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development and model evaluation) , there may be opportunities to minimize duplication of effort, which might ultimately reduce the costs necessary to maintain the multiple visualization and analysis software packages that are currently supported by climate research funds.
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At present, there is no uniform set of land-surface data for use as boundary conditions in the climate models of the major U.S. modeling centers.
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He has shown that "international colleagues now enjoy a substantial computational advantage over U.S. modelers." This view is further buttressed by the USGCRP National Assessment program's current reliance on climate change scenarios developed by foreign modeling groups and by recent special arrangements to use computers at foreign institutions in order to produce complementary simulations for the National Assessment with the NCAR climate system model.
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In allocating resources for climate modeling, agency managers should understand that there is an inherent pyramid structure in climate research. The broad base of understanding that is required in constructing climate models is obtained through a multitude of observational programs and individual process studies.
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The synergism of interaction could be expected to yield substantially more than the sum of the individual modeling efforts. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS RELEVANT TO THIS REPORT: COMPUTATIONAL CAPABILITIES AND COORDINATION Since the climate modeling forum two years ago, there have been indications of several significant developments and changes in the U.S.
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A sharply upgraded version of the GFDL MOMS ocean model has recently been released to its worldwide user community, which includes most of the major climate modeling centers. Two workshops were recently held at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)
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community may, to some extent, have to be content to see these advances implemented in foreign models. CONCLUSIONS Through our analysis of the discussions at the climate modeling forum, responses to the USGCRP questionnaire, personal contacts with the climate modeling community, and deliberations within the CRC, we have reached initial conclusions in our evaluation
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We find that: USGCRP agencies do not have a coordinated approach. Climate modeling priorities within the USGCRP are primarily established by individual agencies with substantial input to each agency from climate researchers, but with little formal inter-agency coordination.
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The current approach to climate modeling in the United States produces a rich diversity of research driven by individual researchers. The purpose has to be to focus that research, not subject it to the "problem of the month," which ultimately will dissipate scientific resources.
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27 At present, the U.S. modeling community on the whole is not supported to produce climate change scenarios for the GHGdriven climate change assessments, such as IPCC and the USGCRP National Assessment.
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There is real concern that if U.S. scientists lose involvement in advanced modeling activities, they will miss opportunities to gain valuable insights into the underlying processes that are critical to subsequent modeling investigations Further, the state of climate modeling throughout the world is such that the addition or removal of even a single model would affect the confidence levels assigned to certain scenarios of future climate change.
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Thus, to facilitate future climate assessments, climate treaty negotiations, and our understanding and predictions of climate, it is appropriate to develop now a national climate modeling strategy that includes the provision of adequate computational: and human resources and that is integrated across agencies.
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