Editing Climate (section)

==Climate models==
[[Climate model]]s use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions and transfer of radiative energy between the [[Earth's atmosphere|atmosphere]],<ref>Eric Maisonnave. [http://www.cerfacs.fr/globc/research/variability/ Climate Variability.] Retrieved on 2008-05-02. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610145233/http://www.cerfacs.fr/globc/research/variability/ |date=June 10, 2008 }}</ref> [[ocean]]s, land surface and ice through a series of physics equations. They are used for a variety of purposes, from the study of the dynamics of the weather and climate system to projections of future climate. All climate models balance, or very nearly balance, incoming energy as short wave (including visible) electromagnetic radiation to the Earth with outgoing energy as long wave (infrared) electromagnetic radiation from the Earth. Any imbalance results in a change in the average temperature of the Earth.

Climate models are available on different resolutions ranging from >100&nbsp;km to 1&nbsp;km. High resolutions in [[global climate model]]s require significant computational resources, and so only a few global datasets exist. Global climate models can be dynamically or statistically downscaled to regional climate models to analyze impacts of climate change on a local scale. Examples are ICON<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dipankar |first1=A. |last2=Heinze |first2=Rieke |last3=Moseley |first3=Christopher |last4=Stevens |first4=Bjorn |last5=Zängl |first5=Günther |last6=Brdar |first6=Slavko |title=A Large Eddy Simulation Version of ICON (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic): Model Description and Validation |journal=Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems |date=2015 |volume=7 |doi=10.1002/2015MS000431|s2cid=56394756 |doi-access=free |hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0024-9A35-F |hdl-access=free }}</ref> or mechanistically downscaled data such as CHELSA (Climatologies at high resolution for the earth's land surface areas).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Karger |first1=D. |last2=Conrad |first2=O. |last3=Böhner |first3=J. |last4=Kawohl |first4=T. |last5=Kreft |first5=H. |last6=Soria-Auza |first6=R.W. |last7=Zimmermann |first7=N.E. |last8=Linder |first8=P. |last9=Kessler |first9=M. |title=Climatologies at high resolution for the Earth land surface areas |journal=Scientific Data |year=2017 |volume=4 |issue=4 170122 |page=170122 |doi=10.1038/sdata.2017.122|pmid=28872642 |pmc=5584396 |bibcode=2017NatSD...470122K |s2cid=3750792 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Karger |first1=D.N. |last2=Lange |first2=S. |last3=Hari |first3=C. |last4=Reyer |first4=C.P.O. |last5=Zimmermann |first5=N.E. |title=CHELSA-W5E5 v1.0: W5E5 v1.0 downscaled with CHELSA v2.0. |journal=ISIMIP Repository |date=2021 |doi=10.48364/ISIMIP.836809}}</ref>

The most talked-about applications of these models in recent years have been their use to infer the consequences of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily [[carbon dioxide]] (see [[greenhouse gas]]). These models predict an upward trend in the [[surface temperature record|global mean surface temperature]], with the most rapid increase in temperature being projected for the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

Models can range from relatively simple to quite complex. Simple radiant heat transfer models treat the Earth as a single point and average outgoing energy. This can be expanded vertically (as in radiative-convective models), or horizontally. Finally, more complex (coupled) atmosphere–ocean–[[sea ice]] [[global climate model]]s discretise and solve the full equations for mass and energy transfer and radiant exchange.<ref>Climateprediction.net. [http://www.climateprediction.net/science/model-intro.php Modelling the climate.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090204080827/http://www.climateprediction.net/science/model-intro.php |date=2009-02-04 }} Retrieved on 2008-05-02.</ref>