Summary
Contents
Subject index
This unique addition to reference literature provides an introduction to the major concepts and contemporary issues that are essential for students of environmental science and environmental studies to know. With over 200 entries authored by world-class names like Anthony Brazel, John Day and Edward Keller, this text is divided into six sections: Environmental Science, Environments, Paradigms & Concepts, Processes & Dynamics, Scales & Techniques, and Environmental Issues.
Climate Modelling
Climate Modelling
Climate modelling uses mathematics and principles of physics to produce numerical expressions and solutions for energy, mass, and momentum processes and characterizations for the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and the cryosphere (snow/ice sheets/glaciers). These solutions are formed for global and regional scales to depict climate processes and typically solve the full equations for fluid motion on a spherical Earth. Models range from treating the Earth as a point to detailed Earth-atmospheric three-dimensional representation (see GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS). A point model of Earth's radiation budget, for example, may involve using the well-known Stefan-Boltzmann law to calculate the radiative temperature, T, of Earth, by assuming S (the solar constant – the incoming solar radiation per unit area – about 1367 W m−2), α (the ...
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