chapter - Atmospheric and Oceanic Science

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the development
and use of three-dimensional computational models of the global climate system,
including its four main components: atmosphere, oceans, land and marine
ice. In this description, it will be assumed that the reader has only a vague idea
about climate models and it will be provided a basic understanding of what the
models are trying to simulate, of how they are built, what has them managed to
simulate and how they are used for evaluative purposes and predictions. After a
short introduction, a brief description of an Atmospheric General Circulation
Model will be given (MCG) and it will be discussed its use for Climatic Change
studies and the uncertainties of these studies.
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CHAPTER
GLOBAL CLIMATE MODELS
Tércio Ambrizzi 1
1 Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil.
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