Next generation of advanced climate models needed, says new report

WASHINGTON — The nation's collection of climate models should advance substantially to deliver more detailed, smaller scale climate projections, says a new report from the National Research Council. To meet this need, the report calls for these assorted climate models to take a more integrated path and use a common software infrastructure while adding regional detail, new simulation capabilities, and new approaches for collaborating with their user community.

From farmers deciding which crops to plant next season, to mayors preparing for possible heat waves, to insurance companies assessing future flood risks, an array of stakeholders from the public and private sectors rely on and use climate information. With changes in climate and weather, however, past weather data are no longer adequate predictors of future extremes. Advanced modeling capabilities could potentially provide useful predictions and projections of extreme environments, said the committee that wrote the report. Over the past several decades, enormous advances have been made in developing reliable climate models, but significant progress is still required to deliver climate information at local scales that users desire.

The U.S. climate modeling community is diverse, including several large global efforts and many smaller regional efforts. This diversity allows multiple research groups to tackle complex modeling problems in parallel, enabling rapid progress, but it also leads to some duplication of efforts. The committee said that to make more efficient and rapid progress in climate modeling, different groups should continue to pursue their own methodologies while evolving to work within a common nationally adopted modeling framework that shares software, data standards and tools, and model components.

"Climate models are computationally intensive and among the most sophisticated simulation tools developed, and the 'what if' questions they help solve involve a mind-boggling number of connected systems," said committee chair Chris Bretherton, a professor in the departments of atmospheric science and applied mathematics at the University of Washington, Seattle. "Although progress will likely be gradual, designing the next generation of models will require us to move toward unification and work more closely with the user, academic, and international communities."

The committee identified a multipart strategy consisting of various efforts over the next two decades to advance the nation's climate modeling endeavor. One such effort is the climate modeling community working toward a shared software infrastructure for building, configuring, running, and analyzing climate models that could help scientists navigate the imminent transition to more complex supercomputing hardware. This would enable scientists to compare and interchange climate model components, such as land surface or ocean models.

Additional steps include convening an annual forum for national climate modeling groups and users to promote tighter coordination and allow more efficient evaluation of models; nurturing a unified weather-climate modeling effort that better exploits the synergies among weather forecasting, data assimilation, and climate modeling; and developing a training program for "climate model interpreters" who could serve as an interface between modeling advances and user needs.

In addition, the committee emphasized that the country should enhance ongoing efforts to:

• sustain state-of-the-art computing systems for climate modeling;
• continue contributing to a strong international climate observing system capable of characterizing long-term climate trends and climate variability;
• develop a training and reward system that entices talented computer and climate scientists into climate model development;
• improve the IT infrastructure that supports climate modeling data sharing and distribution; and
• pursue advances in climate science and uncertainty research.

The National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, is an independent, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter granted to the NAS in 1863. A committee roster follows.

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Pre-publication copies of A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

Chris Bretherton (chair)
Professor
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle

Venkatramani Balaji
Head
Modeling Systems Group
Princeton University
Princeton, N.J.

Thomas L. Delworth
Research Scientist
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
Princeton, N.J.

Robert E. Dickinson1,2
Professor
Department of Geological Sciences
Jackson School of Geosciences
University of Texas
Austin

James A. Edmonds
Laboratory Fellow
Joint Global Change Research Institute
College Park, Md.

James S. Famiglietti
Associate Professor
Department of Earth System Science
University of California
Irvine

Inez Y. Fung1
Professor
Departments of Earth and Planetary Science and Environmental
Science, Policy, and Management
University of California
Berkeley

James J. Hack
Director
National Center for Computational Sciences
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, Tenn.

James W. Hurrell
Senior Scientist
Climate Analysis Section
Climate and Global Dynamics Division
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colo.

Daniel J. Jacob
Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Engineering
Division of Engineering and Applied Science
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

James L. Kinter III
Director
Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies
Calverton, Md.

Lai-Yung R. Leung
Laboratory Fellow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, Wash.

Shawn Marshall
Associate Professor
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta
Canada

Wieslaw Maslowski
Associate Research Professor
Department of Oceanography
U.S. Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, Calif.

Linda O. Mearns
Senior Scientist
Institute for the Study of Society and Environment
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colo.

Richard B. Rood
Professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor

Larry L. Smarr2
Director
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla

Edward Dunlea
Study Director

1 Member, National Academy of Sciences

2 Member, National Academy of Engineering