There’s no science there.’ But they started making movies too.” You can read more about Leith’s animation from Climate Central. He says: ‘That’s just big plan showmanship. And, in fact, Smagorinsky (another pioneer of climate modeling and the first director of NOAA) used to chide me about it a little bit. Whenever I’d go anywhere and give a talk about what I was doing, I would show the film and everybody was fascinated by the film, and they didn’t care what I said about the technical aspects of the model, as far as I could tell. “I did it just because I knew we could do it, it would be interesting to look at, but it was almost too interesting. “The one that I have is essentially a polar projection of the Northern Hemisphere, and you can see the patterns moving in mid-latitudes,” Leith explained during an oral history interview conducted by the American Institute of Physics. As the story noted: “Models calculate winds, heat transfer, radiation, relative humidity, and surface hydrology within each grid and evaluate interactions with neighboring points.” The illustration below should help you visualize how the grids are laid out and some of the physical processes models include.įrom the very beginning, Leith’s animations attracted attention. As NOAA explained in a story about the first general circulation model to include both the ocean and atmosphere, scientists divide the planet into a three-dimensional grid, use computers to solve the equations, and then evaluate the results when they “run” a climate model. What is a climate model? Putting aside the scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who posed for a climate model calendar in 2014 (cover above), climate models are simply mathematical representations of Earth’s climate that are based on fundamental physical, biological, and chemical laws and theories. Image credit: Charlie Naebeck.īased on email and social media comments we receive, climate models are one of the least understood and most maligned tools used by Earth scientists. The calendar, dreamed up by two science writers at Columbia University, offered a fresh look on the meaning of the term ‘climate model.” Read more about the calendar from AGU’s Plainspoken Scientist blog. Columbia University climate scientist Kátia Fernandes appeared on the cover of the 2014 Climate Models wall calendar.

Nasa news september 2015