Topic summary
Global climate model
Extracted from the Wikipedia article General circulation model.
Terminology
The acronym GCM originally stood for General Circulation Model. Recently, a second meaning came into use, namely Global Climate Model. While these do not refer to the same thing, General Circulation Models are typically the tools used for modeling climate, and hence the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, the term "global climate model" is ambiguous and may refer to an integrated framework that incorporates multiple components including a general circulation model, or may refer to the general class of climate models that use a variety of means to represent the climate mathematically.