KenMankoff

An Historical Climate Model

I just found some old (1973) global climate model (GCM) documentation lying around the office. The document describes the GISS GCM at some stage between the UCLA parent and Model I. Model I evolved into Model II which became the foundation for EdGCM. I have scanned the document and submitted it to the History of Atmospheric GCMs website.

It is a beautiful document describing all aspects of the GCM: Numerics and dynamics, punch cards, grid schemes, physical equations, tables and tables of variables and units, etc. These two images (click for large version) show the punchcard order for the old GCM, and the grid scheme at the poles. I like the pole graphic because it reminds me of last year when I was at the South Pole.

The oldest paper I know of that discusses human induced climate change is from 1896, by Svante Arrhenius, titled On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground (PDF, 4413KB).

@article{Arrhenius:1896b,
        Author = {Svante Arrhenius},
        Journal = {Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science},
        Month = {April},
        Number = {41},
        Pages = {237 -- 276},
        Title = {{On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air
                upon the Temperature of the Ground}},
        Volume = {5},
        Year = {1896}}

@manual{Tsang:1973,
        Author = {L. C. Tsang and R. Karn},
        Month = {October},
        Institution = {Goddard Institute for Space Studies},
        Organization = {Computer Science Corporation},
        Title = {{A documentation of the GISS nine-level
                atmospheric general circulation model},
        Year = {1973}}

Tracking Hurricanes

Stormpulse screenshot

Hurricanes are popular again since last week when New Orleans was targeted by Gustav, and we had some nice weather on Saturday with Hanna in New York City. If you want to track the storms, you have a lot of websites to choose from. I’ve just come across Stormpulse, which is by far the best in terms of fancy graphics and interactivity. You can watch the current systems and predictions (general estimates and model tracks), or view historical storms, looking at any time period, historical cloud overlays, etc.

If you want interactivity and browsing, go with Stormpulse. If you want the raw data, head over to the NOAA National Hurricane Center. Same data, different interface.