Studying global climate change with PlaSim

We explore changing the atmospheric concentration of a greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) in numerical experiments with the Planet Simulator model

Global map of the seleted variable. The animation shows 5 years of simulation, month by month (the year is expressed in model-run years). The meridional oscillations are caused by the seasonal cycle in insolation.		Click on this image to select the desired CO2 level. The red dot and thin line are the selected level of global average CO2 concentrations. The thick lines are shown for reference and represent future scenarios of atmospheric CO2 levels for different "Shared Socioeconomic Pathways" (SSP) and different "Representative Concentration Pathways" (RCP) defined for CMIP6 model intercomparisons. Read more on SSPs and RCPs.
Global field mean: 13.8048 ℃

Select the variable: Select the CO2 concentration:

Description of the experiment

These are experiments with the numerical climate model of intermediate complexity Planet Simulator (PlaSim) developed by the University of Hamburg.

These are "permanent" experiments, in which the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are maintained at a fixed level. They show what climate we could expect in the model, if a given CO2 level persisted for many years. Every experiment is shown after allowing the model to run for 50 years, in order to allow it to reach an equilibrium. This means that the average global values reached in these experiments are different from those that could be expected for the end of this century in different scenarios, since by then the real climate system will not have yet reached an equilibrium.

The resolution of the global model grid is about 2.8 degrees (about 300 Km).

You may change the selected variable (temperature, precipitation, etc.) and the CO2 level, ranging from preindustrial levels (285 parts per million (ppm) - typical for the year 1850), through values close to present-day (428 ppm), up to values which are 4 times the preindustrial ones (1140 ppm).

An updated version of the PlaSim source code (in Fortran language) is available on Github.

Simulations by Michela Angeloni (UniBO e ISAC-CNR), graphics and webpage by Jost von Hardenberg (PoliTO).