Identification and modelling of the processes that govern climate

What is the 'Identification and modelling of the processes that govern climate' programme?

This is a joint research programme between the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the Met Office, with University partners.

Background

Climate change is a major scientific, society and policy issue. This programme will look at the evolution of climate on a scale from tens of years to hundreds of years.

Climate is influenced by both the response of the physical climate system (the oceans, air, land and ice) to human activity and also by feedbacks such as the interactions between the oceans and the land and changes in the air.

Such feedbacks have the potential to either amplify or damp down the rate of climate change. Better knowledge of these feedbacks is needed to improve the models and to guide policy making to mitigate climate change.

What will the programme do?

The programme aims to provide new earth system models which will maintain the UK's position as a world leader in climate science research. It will also lead to increased understanding and application of UK models across the world.

The programme will provide information that people in government departments need for evidence-based decision making on climate change.

The programme will:

• advance capability for coupled modelling of the physical climate system and of interactions between climate and the atmosphere
• identify the role of the atmosphere in earth system feedbacks that could influence global climate on a scale from tens to hundreds of years
• improve model representation of earth system feedbacks
• use new and existing observations to test earth system models and to quantify the importance of different feedbacks

Tools

The major tools for this programme are numerical models of the climate system.

For more information about the models see
http://www.ncas.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=669%3...

Who will benefit?

Policy
The results from this programme will be a key part of the evidence base required by the UK government (for example the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Energy and Climate Change) and the programme will also contribute to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations Environment Programme assessments.
 

PROGRAMME FACTS AND FIGURES

Start and end dates: 01/10/2007 to 2015

Supercomputing is supplied by Reading University and further modelling from Cambridge University.

Website: http://www.ncas.ac.uk