AT 606 Climatology Lecture 1 Fall 2002

Questions to think about

Introduction: • What is climate?

What is Climate? • How is climate different from weather?
• Are they related?
• What controls the climate?
• Does climate change?
AT 606
• Can climate be predicted?
Fall 2004
Lecture 1 • Why is Colorado in a record drought?
• Why is central Europe flooding?

Planetary Energy Balance What’s Missing

from the 0-
0-D energy balance model?

• Vertical structure
The “greenhouse effect”

Energy In = Energy Out

• Energy storage and transport
S (1 − α )π R 2 = 4π R 2σ T 4 The “general circulation” of the atmosphere and
oceans
T ≈ −18 C o

But the observed Ts is about 15° C

Vertical Structure is Crucial Vertical Thermal Structure

• The world is a big place, but the
atmosphere is very thin, and most of it is • Heated from
close to the ground below by latent
– About 15% of the atmosphere is below our feet and sensible
– At the top of Long’s Peak, the figure is 40% heat fluxes
– You are closer to outer space than you are to • Heated in
Colorado Springs!
stratosphere
• Changes in atmospheric temperature with by ozone
height are responsible for the “Greenhouse absorption
Effect,” which keeps us from freezing to
death

Weather vs. Climate 1

AT 606 Climatology Lecture 1 Fall 2002

The General Circulation How is Energy Transported

to its “escape zones?”
• Solar heating is greater than longwave cooling in
the tropics: energy accumulates there, both in
the atmosphere and the oceans
• Longwave cooling is greater than solar heating
near the poles: energy is lost there, by thermal
radiation to outer space
• The “job” of the atmosphere and the oceans is
to transport energy from where it accumulates
to where it can be lost
(poleward and upward) • Both atmospheric and ocean transport are crucial
• This job is difficult because of the Coriolis • Buoyancy-driven convection drives vertical transport
force • Latent heat is at least as important as sensible heat

Atmospheric Circulation
in a nutshell
It has been said that
• Hot air rises (rains a lot) in the tropics
• Air cools and sinks in the subtropics “weather is an initial value problem, whereas
(deserts) climate is a boundary-value problem.”
• Poleward-flow is deflected by the Coriolis
force into westerly jet streams in the
temperate zone
• Jet streams are unstable to small • What is meant by this statement?
perturbations, leading to huge eddies • Is this statement true?
(storms and fronts) that finish the job

A Simple Example Temperature Forecasting

Consider a (perfectly insulated) conducting rod of • The partial differential equation describing the
metal, heated at one end cooled at the other changing temperatures along the bar can be solved
either by formal separation of variables or by
numerical modeling
• Either solution predicts the temperature as a function
of x and t, the position along the bar and the elapsed
The time rate of change of temperature at any point time
in the bar can be described by • The boundary conditions (temperatures or heat fluxes
at each end of the bar), and the initial conditions
∂T ∂ ∂T
C = k (temperature at every position at t=0) are required
∂t ∂x ∂x • This problem is analogous to forecasting the weather.
We want a temperature forecast at each position,
where C is the heat capacity, and k is the thermal given current observations of temperature
conductivity of the metal

Weather vs. Climate 2

AT 606 Climatology Lecture 1 Fall 2002

“Climate Modeling” Boundary Conditions

• If we fix the temperature at each end of
the bar to say, Thot and Tcold, we can easily Applying our boundary conditions at the ends
diagnose the temperatures at every of the bar (x=0 and x=L)
position of the bar at steady state
• Set the time derivative to zero and T (0) = Thot = a ⋅ 0 + b
integrate twice: T ( L) = Tcold = aL + b

∂ 2T ∂T Thot − Tcold
=0 =a T ( x) = ax + b T ( x) = Thot − x
∂x 2 ∂x L

• So temperature is simply a linear function of As expected, the metal at any position can
position on the bar (heat flux is constant) just be interpolated linearly between the
two extremes

Climate vs. Weather Predictability

“Climate is what you expect … weather is “If they can’t predict the weather, how can
what you get!” they possibly hope to predict the climate?”
• Weather forecasts are only useful for a
• Climate is an “envelope of possibilities”
few days, maybe a week at best
within which the weather bounces around
• Forecasting is limited by modeling skill and
• Climate is determined by the properties of
inadequate observations, but even if these
the Earth system itself (the boundary
were perfect, the limit of predictability
conditions), whereas weather depends very
would be about 2 weeks
sensitively on the evolution of the system
from one moment to the next • This limit is a property of the atmosphere
itself, not a failure of our science!

Limits to Predictability Airplane analogy

• The dynamical equations governing the • The flow around an airplane wing is
motions of the atmosphere and oceans are governed by the same strongly nonlinear
Navier-Stokes equations that govern the
strongly nonlinear
atmosphere
• This makes them very sensitively • For the same reasons we will never
dependent on their initial conditions forecast the weather a month in advance,
• Errors in the initial conditions, no matter we can never predict the details of the
how trivial or on how small a spatial scale, flow around the wing
quickly grow in magnitude and propagate to • But given boundary values and parameters,
larger spatial scales we can predict with confidence the
statistics of this flow, or flight would be
• Butterfly analogy of Lorenz (1963) impossible!

Weather vs. Climate 3

AT 606 Climatology Lecture 1 Fall 2002

Predictability Times Long-

Long-term Forecasting
• Can’t forecast the weather in Fort Collins on
• Boundary-layer eddy: 10 minutes the day of the AT 606 final exam in
December (Snow? Sunshine? –30 C? +20 C?)
• Cumulonimbus clouds: 1 hour
• Can “forecast” with complete confidence
• Mid-latitude cyclone: 3 days that –100 C < Tmax < +100 C, or even that it
will be colder than it is today
• Big standing waves: 10 days
• Why?
• El Niño: 100 days • Boundary conditions!
• Deep ocean circulation: 50 years(?) – Solar constant
– Atmospheric composition
– Tilt of Earth’s axis, Fort Collins latitude, etc

Slow vs. Fast Climate Components Seasonal Forecasting

• Some parts of the Earth system are slower • In the past 10 years, we’ve learned a lot
to respond to changes than the atmosphere about the processes that control tropical
(e.g., ocean temperatures, soil moisture) Pacific sea-surface temperatures
(El Niño and La Niña)
• Such slow processes give the climate
• Once these processes get started, we can
“memory”
predict their evolution with some skill
• If processes that control these “slow” • Weather anomalies associated with these
processes are known, they may be predicted events are then forecast several months in
• The statistics of the weather respond in advance
systematic an’d predictable ways to changes • Works much better in some places than
in boundary forcing others (not too reliable in Colorado)

Other slow components Climate Modeling

• Soil moisture anomalies have been shown to • Weather and ocean circulation are governed by a
set of reasonably well-known deterministic
amplify drought and flood conditions equations (like F = ma)
• These anomalies develop slowly, and are • The governing equations of climate are in general
difficult to reverse … think “inertia” not known
• Climate modeling is for the most part a “brute
• Some increased skill in seasonal prediction force” activity that involves running “weather”
if soil moisture is well known forecast models for a very long time with
perturbed or slowly changing boundary conditions
• Seasonal snow accumulation may also have
• The initial conditions of a climate simulation are
potential in this regard forgotten in a few simulated weeks
• The statistics of the simulated weather are the
output of interest, the simulated climate

Weather vs. Climate 4

AT 606 Climatology Lecture 1 Fall 2002

Examples of Climate Simulations

• Ice-Age simulations require only a knowledge of
boundary conditions:
– Orbital geometry
– Sea-surface temperatures
– Ice orography
• The atmosphere quickly adjusts to the changed
conditions, and an ice-age climate develops
• Simulations of global warming involve perturbed
boundary conditions too (atmospheric composition
and radiative properties)
• Ocean response is critical, and must be predicted,
not prescribed

Weather vs. Climate 5