Home | CGD

Home | CGD
Home | CGD
Understanding the Earth System and its human relationships
Explore our work
The CGD Laboratory has a mission to discover the key processes in each component of the Earth system and the interactions among them; represent this understanding in models and thereby provide a basis for prediction; and apply this understanding and these models to scientific problems of societal relevance.
Research Sections
Our scientists pursue research as part of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (
NCAR
) and are broken up into focused sections.
Atmospheric Modeling & Predictability Section
Research focuses on increasing understanding of the atmosphere and its role in the Earth system, through modeling and observational studies, and to represent that understanding in improved atmospheric models.
CAS
Research focus is to increase understanding of the atmosphere through empirical studies and diagnostic analyses of the atmosphere and its interactions with the earth's surface and oceans on a wide range of time scales.
Earth System Predictability Section
Uses appropriate Earth system models to study the response of the Earth system to a variety of forcings, including changes in carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases and aerosols.
Oceanography Section
Research is understanding the large-scale ocean circulation and the dynamics of the Earth system through studies of the important processes in the ocean, in air-sea interaction, and in coupled systems
Paleo & Polar Section
Enhance the understanding of the workings of the Earth system through investigations of the past and the role of polar regions in Earth system variability and change
Terrestrial Sciences Section
Studies land-atmosphere interactions, in particular, surface forcing of the atmosphere, through model development, application, and observational analyses
Our Work
Our research focuses to increase our understanding of atmospheric and Earth system variability through parallel development and analysis of observational, assimilated, model-generated and model-forcing dataset
Datasets & Resources
Facilitates access to extensive collections of Earth system model output and observational datasets. These products are very popular with Earth system researchers, both in the United States and internationally.
Modeling
Developing innovative Earth system modeling capabilities, with the ultimate goal of providing accurate and computationally advanced representations of the fully coupled and integrated Earth system.
CESM Software Engineering Group
Works on CSEG code development efforts and project management issues on the CESM project
CGD Recent Publications
Jan 16, 2026
Toward realistic prognostic modeling of the methane chemical loss
Dec 11, 2025
The influence of short-lived halogens on atmospheric chemistry and climate
Dec 9, 2025
QuadTune version 1: a regional tuner for global atmospheric models
Dec 1, 2025
Evaluating the time of occurrence of selected global warming levels for CMIP5 and CMIP6 models