Why Computing Climate is Hard: It's the Science, Stupid

Geoff Vallis

I will discuss some of the underlying scientific problems associated with simulating and understanding climate, and how these translate into difficult computational problems. The most basic problem is simply how to solve the equations of a turbulent, three-dimensional fluid on a rotating sphere, along with associated radiative transfer equations, although even this daunting problem is not the half of it. There are a host of other issues, ranging from simulating such things as clouds and ice sheets to understanding whether climate sensitivity is a problem in climate science or computational science, or both.