Name:CAM
Description:Community Atmosphere Model
Abstract:The Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) is the latest in a series of global atmosphere models developed at NCAR for the weather and climate research communities. CAM also serves as the atmospheric component of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). <BR/><BR/>The Community Climate System Model (CCSM) is a coupled Global Climate Model developed by the <BR/><BR/>University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). The coupled components include an atmospheric model (Community Atmosphere Model), <BR/><BR/>a land-surface model (Community Land Model), an ocean model (Parallel Ocean Program), and a sea ice model (Community Sea Ice Model).<BR/><BR/>The software design of CCSM is based around the notion of a<BR/><BR/>physical/dynamical component of the climate system, and as a freely<BR/><BR/>available community model is designed to work on a variety of machine architectures powerful enough to run the model. The offline chemical transport model has been described as ’very efficient’.<BR/><BR/>The model itself is divided into four component models (land, sea-ice, ocean and atmosphere) connected by a coupler, which exchanges information with each of the component models. It has been suggested by NCAR themselves that because of this, CCSM cannot be considered a single climate model, but rather a framework for building and testing various climate models.

Created:2010-05-01
Last updated:2012-05-22