Book contents
- Computing the Climate
- Epigraph
- Computing the Climate
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The World’s First Climate Model
- 3 The Forecast Factory
- 4 Taming Chaos
- 5 The Heart of the Machine
- 6 The Well-Equipped Physics Lab
- 7 Plug and Play
- 8 Sound Science
- 9 Choosing a Future
- References
- Index
2 - The World’s First Climate Model
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2023
Book contents
- Computing the Climate
- Epigraph
- Computing the Climate
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The World’s First Climate Model
- 3 The Forecast Factory
- 4 Taming Chaos
- 5 The Heart of the Machine
- 6 The Well-Equipped Physics Lab
- 7 Plug and Play
- 8 Sound Science
- 9 Choosing a Future
- References
- Index
Summary
The first computational climate model was built by a Swedish scientist in 1895, 50 years before the invention of programmable electronic computers. All the calculations had to be done by hand. Despite this, the model shares many similarities with today’s computer-intensive climate models, and is a good introduction to how modern models work. The model also provided the first ever prediction of how our use of fossil fuels would lead to global warming, but that wasn’t why it was built. So what was it built for, and were its predictions any good?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Computing the ClimateHow We Know What We Know About Climate Change, pp. 21 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023