The Atmosphere and Climate Modeling - Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration - page 80

would be very diffi cult to recognize a particular country in Europe. The
newest models for the coming IPCC report improve the resolution by a
factor of 5, which gives grid points with a spacing of 50 km. With such a
resolution, the prediction of air fl ow over, say, the Alps, improves signifi -
cantly and this allows for the prediction of regional climate change.
If we compare the modeling of the fl ow patterns in the atmosphere
with those around an airplane, we see many similarities. As mentioned
before, the equations are the same but the scale is very different. This
has important consequences for the resolution at which we can solve the
equations. If we would like to describe the wing of an airplane, we can
apply the same number of grid points that we use to describe all of
Northern Europe. The spacing is not 50 km, but so small that it can
describe every square millimeter of the airplane. With such a fi ne resolu-
tion the predictions can replace experiments.
Resolution is not the only challenge in a global climate model. One also
has to take into account the various interactions that infl uence the climate.
Figure 2.5.3 summarizes these interactions [2.2]. Most of these interac-
tions have been discussed in the previous section. In Figure 2.5.4 , we see
Figure 2.5.3 The climate system
Schematic view of the components of the climate system, their processes and interac-
tions. Figure from IPCC, reproduced with permission [2.2].