Probing into the Workings of Climate with the IPRC Regional Climate Model

General circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere are a key tool for climate research. They represent atmospheric dynamics, physics, and chemistry with mathematical equations, which are then solved on a threedimensional grid that spans the globe. Computer capabilities currently limit the grid resolutions in the global GCMs that are used to simulate Earth’s climate and make warming predictions and that are integrated over several decades (such as those reviewed in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). As a consequence, they have a longitudinal grid spacing of only about 300 km, which is insufficient to resolve many important features of the atmospheric circulation. To deal with this limitation, scientists are turning to regional atmospheric models. Covering a smaller region, the available computing power in such models can be applied to represent climate-related processes and their interactions with Earth’s geographic and vegetation features in finer detail.