The Met Office Hadley Centre climate modelling capability: the competing requirements for improved resolution, complexity and dealing with uncertainty

Predictions of future climate change require complex computer models of the climate system to represent the full range of processes and interactions that influence climate. The Met Office Hadley Centre uses 'families' of models as part of the Met Office Unified Model Framework to address different classes of problems. The HadGEM family is a suite of state-of-the-art global environment models that are used to reduce uncertainty and represent and predict complex feedbacks. The HadCM3 family is a suite of well established but cheaper models that are used for multiple simulations, for example, to quantify uncertainty or to test the impact of multiple emissions scenarios.