Early development in climate modeling and prospect for the future

In the fall of 1958, I joined the General Circulation Research Section of US Weather Bureau, which later became Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA. Immediately, I participated in the development of a general circulation model of the atmosphere, which eventually became a coupled atmosphere-ocean-land model of climate. I will identify some of the challenging problem encountered and discuss our strategy for solving them. Although these models have relatively simple parameterization of subgrid-scale processes, they have been very useful for elucidating the physical and dynamical mechanisms that control climate change. During the last few decades, such a model has evolved into very comprehensive model called Earth System Models, which incorporate very detailed processes such as cloud-microphysics and evapotranspiration from vegitation. Currently, they have been used very extensively for predicting future climate change. A strategy is presented for reducing the large uncertainty in the prediction.