A dynamics approach to a low order climate model

Abstract

Energy Balance Models (EBM) are conceptual models which have proved useful in the study of planetary climate. The focus of EBM is placed on large scale climate components such as incoming solar radiation, albedo, outgoing longwave radiation and heat transport, and their interactions. Until recently, their study has centered on equilibrium solutions of an associated model equation, with no consideration of the dynamical nature of these solutions. In this paper we continue and expand upon recent efforts aimed at placing EBM in a more mathematical, dynamical systems context. In particular, the dynamical behavior of several variants of the Budyko-Sellers model, all but one of which involve the movement of glaciers, is shown to reduce to the study of the system on an attracting one-dimensional invariant manifold in an appropriately defined state space.

Publisher

American Institute of Mathematical Sciences

Publication Date

1-1-2014

Publication Title

Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems Series B

Department

Mathematics

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.3934/dcdsb.2014.19.257

Keywords

Climate modeling, Invariant manifolds, Ice line, Bifurcations

Language

English

Format

text

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