Energy Balance Climate Models

Chapter 7Nonlinear Phenomena in EBMs

Most of the energy balance models (EBMs) we have considered so far have been essentially linear. This allowed us the luxury of using the well-known methods of classical theoretical physics that have been developed over the last few centuries. Linear systems have many great advantages including the decomposition of fields into modes that in many cases are orthogonal, but even systems with non-orthogonal modes can be handled. Linear models can also be analyzed in very elegant forms when statistical noise drives the system, as we will see in Chapter 9. Linear systems described by partial differential equations in space and time often have symmetries that can be exploited as well. Large classes of these linear ...