Picture: Oil drop. Credit: Daniel Olah (Unsplash).

This study introduces the Monash Simple Climate Model (MSCM) experiment database. The MSCM is based on a simple climate model and provides a wide range of model simulations to illustrate how the climate system works.

It focusses on three different aspects of climate model simulations:

  1. understanding processes that control the mean climate,
  2. the response of the climate to a doubling of the CO2 concentration, and
  3. scenarios of external forcing (CO2 concentration and solar radiation).

A series of sensitivity experiments in which elements of the climate system are turned off in various combinations are used to address (1) and (2).

This database currently provides more than 1300 experiments and has an online web interface for fast analysis and free access to the data. We briefly outline the design of all experiments, give a discussion of some results, puts the findings into the context of previously published results from similar experiments.

Although Globally Resolved Energy Balanced (GREB) is a very simple model, it delivers good first-order estimates. It builds a basis on which conceptual ideas can be tested and it provides a starting point for understanding complex climate interactions.