What are General Circulation Models and where can I find more information?
Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the weather and climate system to projections of future climate. All climate models balance, or very nearly balance, incoming energy as short wave electromagnetic radiation (visible and ultraviolet) to the earth with outgoing energy as long wave (infrared) electromagnetic radiation from the earth. Any imbalance results in a change in the average temperature of the earth. Look here or more information on General Circulation Models. The following is a list of the models presented in the Climate Wizard. This list is extracted from the information provided by the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) Climate Model Documentation website.
