ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: Contents: Preface. - 1 Introduction and Historical Development. - 2 Physical Description of the Climate System. - Atmosphere . - Atmospheric composition. - Temperature profiles. - Energy balances. - Average surface temperature patterns. - Large-scale hemispheric circulation patterns: three-cell structure. - Land/sea breezes and monsoons. - Oceans. - Seawater composition. - Ocean temperatures. - Ocean circulation. - Sea Ice. - Global sea ice distributions. - Sea ice formation and growth. - Sea ice ablation. - Sea ice composition and properties. - Sea ice topography. - Sea ice concentration and velocity. - Atrnosphere/Ocean/Ice Interconnections. - Impacts of the atmosphere. - Impacts of the ocean. - An example of atmosphere/ocean interconnections: the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. - Impacts of the ice. - 3 Basic Model Equations. - Fundamental Equations. - Conservation of momentum. - Conservation of mass. - First law of thermodynamics. - Equation of state. - Summary of Basic Predictive Equations for the Atmosphere. - Vertical Coordinate Systems. - Atmospheric and Ocean Dynamics. - Vorticity and divergence equations. - Rossby wave equation. - Baroclinic models. - Early General Circulation Model of the Atmosphere. - Radiative and Cloud Processes. - Radiation: basic principles. - Radiation: physical laws. - Solar radiation. - Net heating/cooling rates. - Clouds. - Precipitation and cloud processes. - Convective adjustment parameterization. - More refined schemes for cumulus convection. - Surface Processes. - Boundary fluxes at the earth's surface. - Computation of surface temperature and hydrology. - Ocean Models. - Quasi-geostrophic Ocean Circulation Model. - Sea Ice Models. - Ice thermodynamics. - Ice dynamics. - 4 Basic Methods of Solving Model Equations. - Finite Differences. - Finite Differencing in Two Dimensions. - Spectral Method. - More general considerations of Fourier series and integrals. - Spherical Representation. - Spectral Transform Technique. - Vertical Representation. - 5 Examples of Simulations of Present-Day Climate. - Simulations of the Atmosphere. - Zonal mean temperature. - Zonal mean wind. - Meridional mean wind. - Zonal mean vertical velocity. - Geographical distribution of surface air temperature. - Geographical distribution of sea level pressure. - Geographical distribution of the 300 mb zonal component of the wind. - Geographical distribution of precipitation. - Intermodel comparisons. - Simulations of the Ocean. - Ocean circulation. - Ocean heat transport. - Surface heights and temperatures. - Quasi-geostrophic results. - Simulations of Sea Ice. - Sea ice thickness and vertical temperature profiles. - Geographical distribution of sea ice thickness and concentration. - Geographical distribution of sea ice velocities. - Weddell polynya. - Impact of ice dynamics on sea ice simulations. - Sea ice modeling successes and failures. - Coupled Atmosphere, Ocean, Sea Ice Simulations. - Modeling Groups. - 6 Climate Sensitivity Experiments. - Paleoclimate Simulations. - Simulations of El Niño/Southern Oscillation. - Climatic Effects of Carbon Dioxide. - Possible Climatic Effects Due to Nuclear War. - Overview of Climate Sensitivity Studies. - 7 Outlook for Future Developments. - APPENDIX A Vector Calculus. - APPENDIX B Legendre Polynomials and Gaussian Quadrature. - APPENDIX C Derivation of Energy Equations. - APPENDIX D Finite Difference Barotropic Forecast Model. - APPENDIX E Spectral Transform Technique. - APPENDIX F Finite Difference Shallow Water Wave Equation Model. - APPENDIX G Atmospheric General Circulation Model Equations. - APPENDIX H Unit Abbreviations. - APPENDIX I Physical Constants in International Systemof Units (SI). - APPENDIX J Conversions. - APPENDIX K Greek Alphabet . - APPENDIX L Acronyms. - References. - Index.

Description / Table of Contents: An introduction to three-dimensional climate modeling by Warren M. Washington and Claire L. Parkinson provides a guide to the development and use of computer models of the earth's climate. The book describes the basic theory of climate simulation, including the fundamental equations and relevant numerical techniques for simulating the atmosphere, oceans, and sea ice. Results for a variety of past, present and future climates are shown and compared with observations.