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Climate change is a persistent alteration of the statistics of a planet's climate. External radiative forcing, internal variability and climate feedbacks all matter, and the timescale must be specified. A climate model connects mechanisms to observable changes; the radiative-convective climate column separates vertical heat transfer from whole-planet conservation of energy, while the Hasselmann stochastic climate model explains how fast weather can drive slow thermal variability.

A climate model is a mathematical description of the mechanisms and statistics of a planet's climate change and variability. A useful hierarchy starts with conservation of energy in a zero-dimensional planetary energy balance, adds vertical radiative transfer and convection in a radiative-convective climate column, and can resolve three-dimensional fluid mechanics and ocean circulation. Each level answers different questions. A column can explain why changing an absorber changes surface temperature; it cannot locate tomorrow's storm.

Three questions should be kept distinct: what sets an average temperature, how fast does it respond to radiative forcing, and how large are its unforced fluctuations? Climate sensitivity concerns the first, heat capacity controls response times, and the Hasselmann stochastic climate model illustrates the third. An observational test must compare a predicted observable with an instrument's actual readout, as in the satellite test of greenhouse spectral change.

A physicist who developed stochastic climate models and founded the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in 1975.^[ref]

Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann each received one quarter for physical climate models quantifying variability and predicting global warming. Giorgio Parisi received one half for discovering how disorder and fluctuations interact in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.^[ref]

A radiative-convective climate column applies a radiative-convective equilibrium model to the vertical thermal structure relevant to climate change. Radiative transfer determines heating and cooling; convective adjustment represents unresolved vertical redistribution when the chosen atmospheric lapse rate is too steep. Radiative equilibrium alone need not give a physically admissible lower-atmospheric profile.

In 1967, Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald computed equilibrium with prescribed relative humidity, allowing atmospheric water vapor to change with temperature. Their average-cloud case warmed by $2.36\mathrm{K}$ for carbon dioxide increasing from 300 to 600 parts per million, versus $1.33\mathrm{K}$ with fixed absolute humidity. These are model outputs, not measured warming. The comparison isolates an important water-vapor feedback.^[ref]

An original two-temperature calculation exposes the bookkeeping. Let an opaque surface absorb solar irradiance $Q$ and emit blackbody thermal radiation $\sigma T_s^4$. A single isothermal atmospheric layer transmits all sunlight and absorbs a fraction $ϵ$ of surface infrared emission, emitting $ϵ\sigma T_a^4$ both upward and downward. This is a grey thermal-band emissivity, with $0<ϵ\le 1$. Let $H$ be upward nonradiative heat flux, and let $C_s,C_a>0$ be heat capacities per unit area. Then conservation of energy givesThe two equations sum toHere $L$ is outgoing longwave radiation. Both $H$ and downward atmospheric emission cancel internally: they redistribute energy without creating it. The factor two in atmospheric emission counts two faces. Dropping the downward face would spoil the surface budget. Each right-hand term has units $\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$; each $C$ has units $\mathrm{J}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}{\mathrm{K}}^{-1}$.

Choose $Q=240\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$, $H=80\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$ and $ϵ=1$. At equilibrium, $L=\sigma T_a^4=240\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$ and $\sigma T_s^4=400\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$, giving $T_a\simeq 255.06\mathrm{K}$ and $T_s\simeq 289.81\mathrm{K}$. Direct substitution gives surface balance $240+240-400-80=0$ and atmospheric balance $400-480+80=0$. These deliberately chosen fluxes illustrate the model; they are not an observed global budget or a reconstruction of the 1967 calculation. Prescribing $H$ illustrates heat transfer accounting but does not close a realistic convection law.

For fixed $Q,H,ϵ$, the positive-temperature equilibrium is locally stable. Put $a=4\sigma T_s^3>0$ and $b=4ϵ\sigma T_a^3>0$. The Jacobian matrix of the temperature equations has trace $-a/C_s-2b/C_a<0$ and determinant $ab(2-ϵ)/(C_s{C}_a)>0$. Thus both eigenvalues have negative real part. Temperature-dependent climate feedbacks alter this test. A single grey layer also omits the optical spectrum, cloud structure and the independent thermal behavior of the troposphere and stratosphere.

A meteorologist who collaborated with Syukuro Manabe on climate models.^[ref]

A satellite test of greenhouse spectral change compares outgoing radiance with radiative transfer predictions. The 2001 study compared IRIS on Nimbus 4 (1970) and IMG on ADEOS (1997). Matching April–June ocean regions, masking land, screening clouds and correcting resolution and wavenumber controlled comparability. Spectral radiance became brightness temperature readouts. Regional comparisons and independent calculations tested interpretation. Carbon dioxide and methane features supported changed absorption; residual clouds, calibration and interannual variability limited background inference.^[ref]

This observational comparison tests radiative transfer; it does not by itself measure equilibrium climate sensitivity or validate a complete climate model.

To understand the readout, write an instrument's spectral channel schematically asHere $I$ is spectral radiance in the viewing direction $\hat{\mathbf{n}}$, $K_j$ is a normalized channel response, $b_j$ is calibration offset and $e_j$ is random error. Subtracting two channel readings isolates an atmospheric difference only after their response functions and sampling are comparable. Matching kernels reduces a false difference caused merely by observing a narrow spectral line at different resolutions; it cannot remove every calibration offset.

Outgoing longwave radiation in an energy budget also integrates radiance over upward directions and over the thermal spectrum, with the appropriate projected-angle factor. A brightness temperature converts one spectral radiance to the equivalent blackbody value through Planck's law; it is not automatically surface temperature. This explains why a spectral difference, a broadband radiative flux difference and surface warming are related observables with different units and different inferences.

A meteorologist who developed climate models at Princeton and NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.^[ref]