Quote:
Originally Posted by Occasionally6
So:
It includes ocean and atmospheric currents, in 3D, and the ways in which they change with changes in atmospheric composition and heat energy?
It includes how those currents move heat around the Earth?
It includes the changes in salinity associated with temperature and how those changes affect ocean currents (and the transfer of heat)?
It includes changes in sea level due to (ocean) thermal expansion, land based ice melting, and local height changes due to altered current flows (think height of water around a bath drain while water is draining)?
It includes the effects of altitude on the quantity of heat energy trapped by GHG's? That's temperature (i.e. specific frequencies of radiant energy) and shading (all the radiated energy is captured by atmosphere closer to the radiating body) effects.
It includes the effects of all the greenhouse gases, such as HFC's and CFC's?
It models the specific heat of various soils and the rate of evaporation from and precipitation to those soils, and how that transfers heat around the Earth?
It includes local effects of SO2 emissions (cooling) and particulates (both warming and cooling)?
It includes the effect of latitude on insolation?
It divides the Earth's surface and atmosphere up into small areas/volumes so that the heat and mass transfers can be calculated between each area/volume? How small are those areas? Are they smaller where there is a lot of variation within an area/volume and coarser where there is not as much variation?
Did you include changes in vegetation that (will) occur with changes in temperature and rainfall over time (decades) and the effects that has on albedo, evaporation rates and land specific heat?
Include the changes in albedo due ice melt?
Include topography?
Does your model accurately reflect seasonal changes when the variation in insolation due to the Earth's orbit is included?
Does it include a GHG "budget" that covers where the GHG's end up eg. how much CO2 stays in the atmosphere, how much dissolves in the ocean, and how much is absorbed by biomass or how long CH4 exists as CH4 before being converted to CO2 and H2O? Does it include how that "budget" will change with changes in temperature and climate?
I'm sure there's more that I haven't thought of at the moment but all of those things I would expect to be part of a climate model (I'm not suggesting I could build one). It's not a trivial thing to do. They tend to be built up over time by many people each adding to or refining a particular piece, perhaps over a whole career. That's not something you can hope to match with a casual effort for personal interest.
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No, it is a energy balance model, and before you get after me for not going that complex none of the "professionally" done models take all of that into account in one model.
Mine does however take into account albedo changes due to changes in temperature, solar variances and affects due to volcanic activity. I do intend on developing the model further, to include regional and altitude differences.