Atmospheric Models of Intermediate complexity

The study of climatic variability on decadal and centennial time scales requires very long integrations of the coupled atmosphere, ocean, ice system. Although a few multi-century integrations of state-of-the-art GCMs have been performed, there is a need for coupled models of intermediate-complexity that can address dynamical problems at a much lower computational cost.

An atmospheric model of intermediate complexity (AIM) has been developed using MITgcm's dynamical core and the simplified 'physics package' of Franco Molteni (ICTP). This is being coupled to MITgcm's ocean model.

Details of the model physics can be found here.