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Written by Ken Mankoff
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Friday, 12 May 2006 |
 While planning a vacation to Cambodia last fall, I decided to try using an EdGCM simulation to verify information provided in the tour guide books. Though one should not expect statistically significant results from one or two grid cells in a GCM, compared to the limited and qualitative climate information in guidebooks, I discovered that a climate model can provide much more... cloud cover (tanning), soil moisture and ground wetness (camping), wind speed (windsurfing), and diurnal temperature variation. EdGCM, and presumably higher-resolution GCMs, are capable of local scale studies when the scientific accuracy of the results does not require a high degree of quantitative precision. EdGCM provides similar information (spatially and temporally) as guide books and the CIA World Factbook and then provides many additional variables.
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Written by Linda Sohl and Mark Chandler
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Friday, 31 March 2006 |
 Extreme glacial events, the so-called "snowball Earth" intervals, are by far the coldest periods in Earth history, with evidence of ice sheets existing even in tropical regions. By trying to identify the key climate forcings that could have led to such cold conditions, we seek to understand the full natural range of climate variability on Earth. In this report, we simulate the effects of major changes to certain climate forcings in an effort to reproduce, with our model, the climatic conditions suggested by the geologic record. We find that while the combination of reduced solar luminosity, atmospheric CO2 levels, and ocean heat transports does cool the planet significantly, it is still not sufficient to reproduce the first-order characteristics of the Sturtian snowball Earth glaciation.
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Written by Paolo Zamparutti
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Monday, 27 March 2006 |
 The first part of this investigation on the last Ice Age was published on MTG Climate in November. It focused on some aspects of the climate of 21 thousand years ago. Now we can use the data given by the Ice Age 21k simulation to understand what are the fundamental differences between the climate of today and the glacial one: in particular we will focus our attention on the thermal aspect. We will base our studies on a simulation that represents a medium condition of the Wurmian period, when there were some warm and favourable phases and some colder ones. |
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Written by Tom Rees
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Tuesday, 20 December 2005 |
 Our second Community Showcase article involves a simulation of the Maunder Minimum. Author Tom Rees recreates the work done in a recent paper by Shindell et al., offering his own insights on the subject of the Maunder Minimum and climate change. |
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Written by Paolo Zamparutti
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Monday, 07 November 2005 |
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Our first Commmunity Showcase article was written by Paolo Zamparutti of MTG Climate in Italy, and was translated by Giuseppe Petricca. MTG Climate used EdGCM to recreate the climatic conditions of 21 thousand years ago, when our planet was at the peak of the last Ice Age (i.e. The Last Glacial Maximum). |
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