What Are Climate Models?

Written By Teacher: Teresa Pettitt-Kenney

Hi there! My name is Teresa and I just finished my Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and am excited to pursue environmental education in the future! I am extremely passionate about climate change, equitable climate action, and how education can work to address these issues. 

How are scientists able to predict weather, climate, and future global warming trends? The answer to this common question is climate models! Teaching students about simulating weather using climate models is an exciting real-world application of computer simulations. Understanding how scientists simulate past and future weather trends can provide students with answers about how climate change works and why we know it’s really happening. Students can try to come up with their own solutions to climate problems, like in this science lesson that utilizes the En-Roads simulator, or try this hands-on modeling experiment to visualize processes like the greenhouse effect. Modeling activities can easily be interactive and hands-on, allowing students to connect and understand the processes behind the Earth they live on and the impacts humans are having. 

Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.

Climate models are computer programs that simulate weather patterns over time. By running these simulations, climate models can estimate the Earth’s average weather patterns—the climate—under different conditions. Scientists use climate models to predict how the climate might change in the future, especially as human actions, like adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, change the basic conditions of our planet.

Under the hood of a climate model

To simulate weather, climate models must reflect real properties of the Earth’s climate, including physical laws like the conservation of energy and the ideal gas law. They also include variables like air pressure, temperature, and wind. All of these are expressed as equations that a climate model must solve. Solving the equations produces a three-dimensional picture that shows natural climate patterns in action, like rainfall, ocean currents, and the changing of seasons.

Climate models agree on many important facts about our climate. For instance, models reliably show that adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will cause average temperatures to rise. Models also try to predict how climate change will affect rainfall, sea levels, ice cover, and other parts of the natural world.