Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) is a standard

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

al protocol for global

atmospheric An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...

general circulation model A general circulation model (GCM) is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms f ...

s (AGCMs). It provides a

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

-based infrastructure in support of

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

model diagnosis, validation, intercomparison,

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance and use. As a form of knowledge manageme ...

and

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

access. Virtually the entire international climate modeling community has participated in this project since its inception in 1990. AMIP is endorsed by the

Working Group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...

on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE) of the

World Climate Research Programme The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Inter ...

, and is managed by the

Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison The Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) is a program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. Livermore is in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. It is funded by the Regional an ...

with the guidance of the WGNE AMIP Panel. The AMIP experiment itself is simple by design; an AGCM is constrained by realistic

sea surface temperature Sea surface temperature (SST), or ocean surface temperature, is the ocean temperature close to the surface. The exact meaning of ''surface'' varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between and below the sea surface. Air mass ...

and

sea ice Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice, which has an even lower density). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oce ...

from 1979 to near present, with a comprehensive set of fields saved for diagnostic research. This model configuration removes the added complexity of

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

-atmosphere feedbacks in the climate system. It is not meant to be used for

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

prediction, an endeavor that requires a coupled atmosphere-ocean model (e.g., see AMIP's sister project CMIP).

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20170822235226/http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/projects/amip/index.php - AMIP home page {{climate-change-stub Numerical climate and weather models

See also

External links