About Climate Change Research
The CCR section makes extensive use of state-of-the-art coupled climate system models to study the sensitivity and stability of the Earth system to a variety of forcings, including changes of greenhouse gases, aerosols, solar irradiance, volcanic forcing, land characteristics, and land use change. CCR is a focal point for NCAR and university paleoclimate research and serves as a resource to the paleoclimatic and climate change research community in the use of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). CCR scientists collaborate closely with major U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories in developing and using high-performance coupled climate models to address national climate research and climate change policy questions.
Present and Future Climate Change Research
CCR's Climate Change and Prediction (CCP) research focuses on the sensitivity and stability of the Earth system to a variety of forcings, including changes of greenhouse gases, aerosols, solar irradiance, volcanic forcing, land characteristics, as well as land use change. In addition, CCP continues to conduct centuries long simulations and ensembles of simulations.
Release of the Breakthrough IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 report presents a clear picture of a planet undergoing a rapid climate transition with significant societal and environmental impacts. The strength and clarity of the IPCC AR4 report can be attributed, in part, to DOE/NSF supercomputing centers making it possible to deploy climate models of unprecedented realism and detail. With the question of anthropogenic climate change settled, our next challenge is applying the new class of Earth System Models that include the detailed physical, chemical, and biological processes, interactions and feedbacks in the atmosphere, oceans, and land surface, to carry out policy-relevant adaptation/mitigation scenarios.
Paleoclimate
CCR's paleoclimate group studies climates of the prehistoric past. The largest climate changes that have occurred on Earth, such as the Ice Ages, are those recorded in the geologic record. Understanding the causes of such past climate changes is an essential part of developing and validating models of future climate change.