This means that scientists can get substantially more detailed information from the model. The five-kilometer GEOS map, like the one shown here, contains 24 million grid cells. A flat map of the globe produced by a 28-kilometer climate model contains 777,000 grid cells (pixels). The typical climate model simulates clouds at about 100 kilometers per pixel. The model run shown here has a resolution of 5 kilometers. It can run globally at 3.5 kilometers, making it one of the most detailed global atmospheric models in the world. The GEOS-5 model normally runs at a resolution of about 28 kilometers per pixel to study the connections between weather and climate. The large images, which include the entire globe, show that the model also accurately predicted clusters of thunderstorms in the tropics.
As the satellite image shows, the tiny clouds formed as predicted. It predicted lines of small clouds, clouds streets, east of the winter storm.
The model’s high resolution also allowed it to forecast very specific cloud features. The model accurately predicted the location and shape of major cloud systems, both the long curved band of clouds over the eastern North Atlantic Ocean and the large winter storm off the coast of the United States. The model matches the satellite image quite well. These images show cloud cover (as measured in infrared energy) on top of a static true-color image of the land. The lower image, taken by the NASA-NOAA GOES satellite, shows how well the model predicted cloud features for February 6, 2010, the day a massive winter storm dumped several feet of snow on the Washington, DC region.īoth the model and the satellite sensor use infrared energy to measure clouds. The model image represents a single point in time 90 hours into a 20-day model run that started on February 2. Comparing the results for a single day to a satellite image reveals how well the model works in a short-term run. GEOS is an atmospheric model used to study the physics of the atmosphere in both the short term, weather, and mid to long term, climate. The model is called the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5), and the image shows a moment in a five-kilometer run, one of the highest-resolution runs of the model to date. These images compare a simulation from a detailed global atmospheric model, top image, with observations from the GOES satellite from the same time, lower image. Both are necessary in understanding how and why Earth’s atmosphere, land, and oceans function together as they do. The models allow scientists to test different scenarios, while the observations provide a reality check. Instead, Earth system scientists combine observations of the real world with complex computer models. It’s difficult to systematically tweak temperatures here or clouds there to see how the system works. Many of us think of scientists experimenting in a lab during the hypothesis-testing phase, but for scientists studying how the Earth works, their lab is the planet. A scientist makes observations, poses a hypothesis to explain the observations, and then systematically tests the hypothesis, looking for evidence that either supports or refutes its validity.