Features

Berkeley lab’s climate simulation closes in on weather predication

Daily Planet Wire Service
Tuesday September 10, 2002

Scientists at Lawrence National Laboratory in Berkeley recently completed a millennium-long simulation of global climate changes, further closing the accuracy gap in weather prediction. 

For more than 200 uninterrupted days climate researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research completed the 1,000-year run on their new Community Climate System Model (CCSM2) IBM supercomputer in Berkeley. 

According to Jeff Kiehel, a climate researcher scientist at NCAR who heads the CCSM2 effort, the recent simulation cuts down on temperature variations, which ultimately jeopardized the success of previous models. 

“This simulation will enable climate scientists to study the variability of the climate system on decade to century time scales, which is an important aspect of climate change detection and attribution studies,” Kiehel said. 

Developed by a group of climate researchers that includes scientists and software engineers alike, the CCSM2 simulates a varying degree of weather phenomena including El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.