Earth system modeling for scientific understanding, information, and applications to climate impacts and predictability

Major advances have occurred recently in the global modeling of the physical climate system owing to improved understanding of fundamental governing processes and the increased availability of high-performance supercomputing. These have enabled models to be developed with (a) more realism of the processes yielding significant progress in Earth system science, and (b) enhanced spatial resolution for deriving regional-scale climate information. Examples of this will be presented using the NOAA/ GFDL global models that have been used for the World Climate Research Program's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and the IPCC Fifth Assessment, with special regards to atmospheric chemistry-climate interactions, biogeochemistry-climate interactions, and the study of extremes and decadal predictability. NOAA/ GFDL's future modeling plans involve pursuing further a state-of-the-art strategy of simulating climate processes with better accuracy and with increased spatial resolution, addressing unresolved gaps in the understanding of mechanisms, pushing the knowledge frontier towards better characterization and quantification of uncertainties, and improving upon the projections and predictability of the Earth system.