Introduction

• Historical Overview
• The AGCM Family Tree
• Participating in GCM History
• Caveats: Work in Progress

This Web site offers a brief history of atmospheric general circulation models from the 1940s to the early 1990s. It is also a forum for expanding our knowledge and understanding of that history, by collecting documentation and welcoming commentary.

The site focuses on the following aspects of general circulation modeling:

• Key scientific changes
• Institutions (modeling groups)
• Historical relationships among models and modeling groups
• Political context: emergence of global atmospheric issues (greenhouse effect)

Two avenues of entry are recommended.

Historical Overview

This narrative history of general circulation modeling includes:

• Overview
• Before 1955: Numerical Models and the Prehistory of AGCMs
• 1955-65: Establishment of General Circulation Modeling
• 1965-75: Spread of GCMs
• 1975-85: GCMs Mature

The AGCM Family Tree

The AGCM Family Tree is a visual map of the major modeling groups and their relationships, with links to information on each model and modeling group.

Participating in AGCM History

This site is a participatory, collective project. Our purpose is not only to present historical information, but also to gather it and to make it available. We encourage readers to send us additions, comments, criticisms, and contributions of all sorts.

We hope to gather information that would not be part of any official record, while it is still relatively fresh in participants' memories. We are especially interested in information that might not otherwise be preserved, or that researchers would not easily be able to find. We seek materials related to the development of AGCMs, including model documentation, memoirs, and correspondence. Contributions may become part of a public archive on the history of atmospheric general circulation models.

Click here to learn how you can contribute to AGCM history.

Caveats: Work in Progress

These pages are a draft, not a final account. They will be continually revised in light of new contributions. We encourage comments and criticism.To enhance online readability, most pages are kept short. Many important developments are not covered here, though coverage will be extended as contributions allow. Citations are intended only to note the most important work and/or to give examples.

The focus of these pages on general circulation models should not imply that other kinds of climate models are unimportant. Because this site is historical, more recent periods are covered in less detail.

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