Block 6: Climate Models: How They Work, How They're Wrong, How to Read Them
A weather forecast is useless beyond about 10 days. Climate models project to 2100, and scientists trust them.
Task: How can both be true? Write your best explanation of the difference. Today's block sharpens it.
Answer in your Field Notebook, dated.
I can describe what GCMs and RCMs include and don't include, decode an IPCC projection figure, and explain why projection differs from prediction.
I can use real data and model results to forecast climate change where I live, and say how confident to be.
"Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems."
Where this runs:
- U4 B5: IPCC AR6 Deep Dive + Chennai Climate Brief Assigned
- U4 B6: Climate Models: How They Work, How They're Wrong, How to Read Them ← you are here
- U4 B7: Regional Climate Change: From Global Average to Chennai's Monsoon
Assessed:
Chennai Climate Brief: the regional-projection components (T/T)
On track looks like:
Your Chennai projections cite data AND name the model's uncertainty: forecast, not prophecy.
I can check an AI's answer against real sources and decide: use it, fix it, or bin it.
In brief: "Evaluate whether an AI output should be accepted, revised, or rejected (paraphrased; full framework at ailiteracyframework.org)"
Where this runs:
- U0 B1: Welcome + How We Work
- U0 B2: OPVL Across Source Types
- U0 B3: AI as a Source + Documentation Protocol
- U0 B4: Source Dossier Launch + Choosing Your Topic
- U0 B5: Source Dossier Work Day 2: AI Source + Documentation
- U1 B1: Phenomenon Launch: What Makes a Planet Habitable?
- U1 B3: Mars as Calibration: What Does Earth Have That Mars Doesn't?
- U1 B5: Exoplanet Detection: Transits and What They Tell Us
- U1 B6: Reading Exoplanet Data Cards: Choosing Your Planet
- U1 B7: Habitability Framework: Building the Comparison
- U2 B3: Rivers as Landscape Sculptors
- U2 B6: Field Photo / Map Analysis Work Day
- U2 B7: Reading the Landscape: Worked Example + OPVL
- U4 B5: IPCC AR6 Deep Dive + Chennai Climate Brief Assigned
- U4 B6: Climate Models: How They Work, How They're Wrong, How to Read Them ← you are here
Assessed:
Every AI Documentation Template: the 'one thing the AI got wrong' field
On track looks like:
You catch specific errors ('it said 2024; the report says 2023'), and you've stopped writing 'AI can hallucinate.'
What today is about
Climate models are not crystal balls. They're physics simulations on a grid.
Every cell of the atmosphere has equations for radiation, fluid motion, water vapor, cloud formation. The smaller the cell, the more computation; the larger the cell, the more parameterization (rules-of-thumb for sub-grid physics: what's happening inside a cell too big to simulate directly). Different models choose different parameterizations. That's why two models can disagree about a regional projection while both being "right" in some sense; they're answering slightly different versions of the question.
By the end of today, you can decode the parts of an IPCC projection figure: the axes (what's being measured), the lines (which scenario), the shaded ranges (model spread or confidence interval), the confidence-level language ("likely" / "very likely" / "virtually certain"). By Block 7 you'll use this skill on Chennai-specific projections for your Climate Brief's Evidence section.
One critical distinction the Climate Modeler will hold the line on: projection vs. prediction. Models project under specific scenario assumptions ("if emissions follow SSP5-8.5..."). They don't predict ("Chennai will see X mm of sea-level rise by 2050"). That distinction will appear on the rubric.
Before you start the work
Start with the Watch: the day's anchor, projected for everyone. The Read and the Interact are practice that follows it.
Today's work: choose one path
All four paths end with a 5-sentence "what it shows" + 3-sentence "what it doesn't" IPCC figure analysis. The path you pick is about which figure.
Open your Class Notebook and type today's entry header as Heading 2:
A: Feb 3 | U4 B6 | Climate ModelsB: Feb 4 | U4 B6 | Climate Models
What you're submitting today
5 + 3 sentences. The "what it doesn't show" sentences are where T/T 7-8 lives.
One IPCC figure. Five sentences on what it shows: axes (units + range) · scenarios depicted · the central trend or projection · the uncertainty range or model spread · the confidence-level language used. Three sentences on what it doesn't show: specific events the figure cannot predict · variables not modeled · uncertainties not captured by the shaded range.
Submit via Google Classroom (link posted in August)One question before you leave
Three to five minutes. Your answer is saved to your reflection journal, where you can read back everything you have written this year.
Metacognitive: what assumption did you push on?
Today's reflection is in Google Classroom, under Reflection Journal.
Link posted in AugustSign in with your school account. Your teacher can see what you write here.