Oceanographers' contribution to climate modelling and prediction: progress to date and a future perspective

The ocean plays an essential role in determining aspects of the climate through its influence on coupled processes involving the atmosphere, cyrosphere and biogeochemistry, including budgets of heat and carbon dioxide and sea-level rise. Here, the key developments in ocean modelling over the past 20 years are reviewed and the prospects for the next 20 years are outlined, considering a hierarchy of idealized, conceptual and realistic modelling frameworks. It is emphasized that any long-term modelling strategy needs to be underpinned and complemented by fundamental theoretical and observational research activities. The need to be aware of the societal and technological drivers that will shape future research directions is also articulated.

Interpretation of cloud-climate feedback as produced by 14 atmospheric general circulation models

Understanding the cause of differences among general circulation model projections of carbon dioxide-induced climatic change is a necessary step toward improving the models. An intercomparison of 14 atmospheric general circulation models, for which sea surface temperature perturbations were used as a surrogate climate change, showed that there was a roughly threefold variation in global climate sensitivity. Most of this variation is attributable to differences in the models' depictions of cloud-climate feedback, a result that emphasizes the need for improvements in the treatment of clouds in these models if they are ultimately to be used as climatic predictors.

Subtropical Atlantic Climate Studies: Introduction

This report is an introduction to the accompanying collection of reports that present the results of a 2-year period of intensive monitoring of the Florida Current. Both direct observing systems (ship-deployed current profilers and moored current meters) and indirect observing systems (coastal tide gauge stations, bottom pressure gauge arrays, a submarine cable, acoustic arrays, and radar installations) were used to measure temperature and volume transport.