A two-dimensional energy balance climate model including radiation and ice caps-albedo feedback

A simplified two-dimensional energy balance climate model including the solar and infrared radiation transports, the turbulent exchanges of heat in vertical and horizontal directions and the ice caps-albedo feedback is developed The solutions show that if the atmosphere is considered as a grey body and the grey coefficient depends upon the distributions of absorption medium and cloudiness, both horizontal and vertical distributions of temperature are identical to the observation.On the other hand, comparing the models that the atmosphere is considered as a grey body with ones that the infrared radiation is parameterized as a linear function of temperature, as was considered by Budyko, Sellers(1969), then the results show that even though both of them can obtain the earth's surface temperature in agreement with the observation, the sensitiv ity of the climate to the changes of solar constant is very different. In the former case,the requirement for the ice edge to move southward from the normal 72°N to 50°N(i.e. where the glacial climate would take place) is that the solar constant should decrease by 13% to 16%. However, in the latter case, the climate is highly sensitive to the changes of solar radiation. In this case, the requirement of solar radiation occurring in the glacial climate should decrease by 2% to 6%. According to the investigations mentioned above we must be careful when the parameterizations of the radiation and other processes are conducted in a climate model, otherwise the reliability of the results is suspicious.