Chapter 1 - A Personal Perspective on the Early Years of General Circulation Modeling at UCLA

This chapter provides a personal perspective on the early years of general circulation modeling at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and serves as a memoir in the evolution of ideas in the history of general circulation modeling at UCLA, with references to the history of numerical modeling of the atmosphere. Periods of early general circulation models (GCM) are reviewed, covering their prelude and the “epoch-making” first phase. The chapter also focuses on the history during the pre-UCLA period, and the work at UCLA on the “Arakawa Jacobian.” The development of the “Mintz-Arakawa model,” which belongs to the first generation of the UCLA general circulation models, is also reviewed. The “magnificent” second phase in the general history of numerical modeling of the atmosphere and the different generations of the UCLA general circulation model are developed during this phase. The development of the early GCMs stimulated the meteorological community to look into the feasibility of a global observation and analysis experiment. The chapter also discusses in detail the evolution of the generations for selected modeling aspects, which are vertical differencing, horizontal differencing, formulation of planetary boundary layer processes, and formulation of moist processes.

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