Modeling Future Climate
Modeling
Future
Climate
Modeling Future Climate
Transformational Steps Forward
Our planet's climate is changing, shifting more rapidly than at any other time in human history, imperiling society with extreme heat, wildfire, floods, and more. A crucial challenge for climate science is determining when the most severe climate-related impacts are likely to happen.
Since the changes Earth is experiencing are different from any other time in our understanding of planetary history, the work of projecting the future must rely on evolving calculations of emerging data.
Climate models help researchers forecast these impacts. They are based on well-documented physical processes to simulate the transfer of energy and materials through the climate system to help scientists look at complicated problems and understand complex systems.
At Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the work of modeling has a rich history and continues evolving.
Maps showing how much CO2 the oceans are absorbing (blue) versus releasing into the atmosphere (red) in 2000. The difference indicates the level of uncertainty in these estimates. Source: McKinley et al., 2017.
“With LEAP STC, we will directly partner with NCAR to increase the projection skill of their Community Earth System Model. This is a deeper partnership focused on improving key components of the representations of physics and biogeochemistry. We are also building better datasets with which to validate the models.”
Galen McKinley
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Climate School
Changing Ice, changing coastlines
This year, to help researchers bring greater precision to this work, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected Columbia to lead a Science and Technology Center (STC) called Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP).
The center will develop the next generation of data-driven physics-based climate models in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and partner universities. It will also train a new wave of students fluent in climate science, climate modeling, and modern machine-learning algorithms.
The center's larger goal is to provide actionable information for societies to adapt to climate change and protect the most vulnerable. Among those leading the LEAP center is Lamont oceanographer and carbon cycle scientist Galen McKinley.
“With LEAP STC, we will directly partner with NCAR to increase the projection skill of their Community Earth System Model,” said McKinley. NCAR created the Community Earth System Climate Model or CSEM in 1983 as a freely available global atmosphere model for the broader climate research community.
According to McKinley, while Lamont scientists have worked with CSEM in the past, “This is a deeper partnership focused on improving key components of the representations of physics and biogeochemistry. We are also building better datasets with which to validate the models.”
In July 2021, atmospheric scientist Robert Pincus joined Lamont. He works at the intersection of clouds and radiation and has had a career of breakthrough work in climate modeling. Pincus believes the LEAP project has the potential to be transformative.
“The community has tried several promising ideas to try to sharpen predictions, but they’ve all been based on having a cartoon of the world in our minds. LEAP has the potential to step around that,” says Pincus. “The promise of machine learning at the process level is that we can use the way the world behaves now, all the rich behavior we can observe directly, to tell us how the entire climate system will behave in the future.”
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Maps showing how much CO2 the oceans are absorbing (blue) versus releasing into the atmosphere (red) in 2000. The difference indicates the level of uncertainty in these estimates. Source: McKinley et al., 2017.
Modeling Future Climate
Transformational Steps Forward
Our planet's climate is changing, shifting more rapidly than at any other time in human history, imperiling society with extreme heat, wildfire, floods, and more. A crucial challenge for climate science is determining when the most severe climate-related impacts are likely to happen.
Since the changes Earth is experiencing are different from any other time in our understanding of planetary history, the work of projecting the future must rely on evolving calculations of emerging data.
Climate models help researchers forecast these impacts. They are based on well-documented physical processes to simulate the transfer of energy and materials through the climate system to help scientists look at complicated problems and understand complex systems.
At Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the work of modeling has a rich history and continues evolving.
“With LEAP STC, we will directly partner with NCAR to increase the projection skill of their Community Earth System Model. This is a deeper partnership focused on improving key components of the representations of physics and biogeochemistry. We are also building better datasets with which to validate the models.”
Galen McKinley
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Climate School
This year, to help researchers bring greater precision to this work, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected Columbia to lead a Science and Technology Center (STC) called Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP).
The center will develop the next generation of data-driven physics-based climate models in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and partner universities. It will also train a new wave of students fluent in climate science, climate modeling, and modern machine-learning algorithms.
The center's larger goal is to provide actionable information for societies to adapt to climate change and protect the most vulnerable. Among those leading the LEAP center is Lamont oceanographer and carbon cycle scientist Galen McKinley.
“With LEAP STC, we will directly partner with NCAR to increase the projection skill of their Community Earth System Model,” said McKinley. NCAR created the Community Earth System Climate Model or CSEM in 1983 as a freely available global atmosphere model for the broader climate research community.
According to McKinley, while Lamont scientists have worked with CSEM in the past, “This is a deeper partnership focused on improving key components of the representations of physics and biogeochemistry. We are also building better datasets with which to validate the models.”
In July 2021, atmospheric scientist Robert Pincus joined Lamont. He works at the intersection of clouds and radiation and has had a career of breakthrough work in climate modeling. Pincus believes the LEAP project has the potential to be transformative.
“The community has tried several promising ideas to try to sharpen predictions, but they’ve all been based on having a cartoon of the world in our minds. LEAP has the potential to step around that,” says Pincus. “The promise of machine learning at the process level is that we can use the way the world behaves now, all the rich behavior we can observe directly, to tell us how the entire climate system will behave in the future.”
Donate today to SUPPORT LAMONT SCIENCE
GIVE TODAY
Writer/Editor: Marie DeNoia Aronsohn I Contributing Editors: Tara Spinelli and Marian Mellin I Contributing Writer: John Palmer I Design: Carmen Neal
Columbia Climate School Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Annual Report FY2021
© 2021 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. All rights reserved.
Writer/Editor: Marie DeNoia Aronsohn
Contributing Editors: Tara Spinelli and Marian Mellin
Contributing Writer: John Palmer
Design: Carmen Neal
Columbia Climate School Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Annual Report FY2021
© 2021 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. All rights reserved.