The U.S. government has pending before it the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which is largely based on the threat GHGs pose to the global climate. Such an agreement would have significant economic and national security implications, and therefore any national policy decisions regarding this issue should rely in part on the best possible suite of scenarios from climate models.
The U.S. climate modeling research community is a world leader in intermediate and smaller climate modeling efforts-research that has been instrumental in improving the understanding of specific components of the climate system. Somewhat in contrast, the United States has been less prominent in producing high-end climate modeling results, which have been featured in recent international assessments of the impacts of climate change. The fact that U.S. contributions of these state-of-the-art results have been relatively sparse has prompted a number of prominent climate researchers to question the current organization and support of climate modeling research in the United States, and has led ultimately to this report.
- Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling to Support Climate Change Assessment Activities
- Copyright
- Preface
- Acknowledgment of Reviewers
- Contents
- Executive Summary
- Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling
- BACKGROUND
- POLICY CONTEXT
- CURRENT SMALL AND INTERMEDIATE MODELING CAPABILITIES
- CURRENT HIGH-END MODELING CAPABILITIES AND NEEDS
- ACCESS TO FOREIGN MODEL OUTPUT
- PRIORITY SETTING
- COORDINATION
- ALLOCATING RESOURCES
- RECENT DEVELOPMENTS RELEVANT TO THIS REPORT: COMPUTATIONAL CAPABILITIES AND COORDINATION
- CONCLUSIONS
- References
- Appendix A
- 1. THE CRISIS IN U.S. CLIMATE MODELING
- 2. THREE OPTIONS FOR PROGRESS
- Option 1: Further increase funding at existing modeling centers
- Option II: A new center for climate modeling
- Option III: A distributed national climate modeling program
- 3. A THREE-TIER STRUCTURE FOR THE DISTRIBUTED PROGRAM
- Tier 1: The U.S. National Climate Model
- Tier 2: Model development research
- Tier 3: Research on climate variability
- 4. IMPLEMENTATION
- Appendix B Statement of Task
- Appendix C CRC Climate Modeling Workshop Invitation and Agenda
- AGENDA OF CLIMATE MODELING WORKSHOP
- Executive Session
- Public Session
- The Quality and Infrastructure of Climate Modeling in the United States
- Appendix D Examples of Access Restrictions on Foreign Atmospheric Data
- Appendix E
- NCAR MEASUREMENTS OF SINGLE PROCESSOR PERFORMANCE
- High-end Processors
- (64-bit Results)
- A SAMPLING OF COMPUTING SYSTEMS IN MAJOR ATMOSPHERIC MODELING CENTERS AROUND THE WORLD
- I. Introduction
- II. Systems Currently Installed
- III. Future Developments Abroad
- IV. A Sample of Computing Systems in Universities Abroad
- V. Impact on U.S. Atmospheric Science
- VI. Summary
- COMMENTS FROM UCAR TO THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION HEARING
- Members of the Commission:
- Background
- A New NCAR Climate Model
- The RFP
- Performance Expectations in the BAFO Guidelines.
- The BAFO from the Federal Computer Corporation (FCC)
- The BAFO from Cray Research
- Basis for Selection
- If An Antidumping Order is Issued
- Summary
- Bibliography
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