Research report 2018 - Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
When global climate models are able to differentiate between an elephant and a big mouse
Authors
Hohenegger, C.; Stevens, B.; Kornblueh, L.; Brueck, M.; Röber, N.
Departments
Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Hamburg; Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (Röber)
Summary
Eighty-three million points are needed to represent the atmospheric state every 2.5 km on Earth. Only such a grid spacing allows climate modelers to represent in their models the diversity of clouds, their small-scale details and their unique shapes which, at times, may remember elephants and, at other times, big mice. But are so many details that cannot be captured by current state-of-the-art climate models really necessary? In the following the authors present the results of an intercomparison exercise where, for the first time, eight of these next-generation climate models were run.