Chinese scientists upgrade resolution of global climate-ocean simulation to 1 km

BEIJING -- A group of Chinese scientists have jointly developed a global ocean circulation model with a horizontal resolution of one kilometer, the Science and Technology Daily reported on Thursday.

The ocean serves as a crucial regulator of energy and carbon sinks in the Earth's climate system, absorbing over 90 percent of the additional heat from global warming and more than 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions by humans, according to the news report.

In recent years, with the increasing frequency of extreme climate events, simulating and understanding mesoscale and sub-mesoscale processes in the ocean, such as eddies and fronts, have become key to improving the accuracy of climate predictions.

The global ocean circulation model LICOMK++, developed by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Laoshan Laboratory, enables the direct simulation of sub-mesoscale processes in the ocean. This is akin to embedding a "microscope" into the global "ocean map," allowing for the precise capture of complex dynamical processes such as ocean eddies and fronts.

These fine-scale ocean dynamical processes directly affect the transport and distribution of heat and substances globally, and are of great significance for understanding and predicting extreme weather events such as marine heatwaves, typhoons, and extreme precipitation.

The model provides technological support that facilitates global climate governance and advances sustainable development.