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A comment on U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again. Parent comment

Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by dlivingston on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @06:42PM (#20397472)
> Why is a 3D model even necessary?

See [0]. PDEs can be solved discreetly in three dimensions on a three-dimensional grid (3D model, sort of).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_volume_method

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Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by lutorm on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @08:44PM (#20398222)
That doesn't really explain why you need a 3d model, though. If there was no important vertical process, you could get away with not resolving it. However, vertical heat transport is the entire game since the lower atmosphere is opaque to heat.
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Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by dlivingston on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @01:37PM (#20404303)
I mean, it does though. The atmosphere is a 3D volume. Parameters that you might be interested in solving for, like advection and convection, are 3D processes. Consequently, you will need a 3D grid to solve the PDEs describing these parameters.

EDIT: Ah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I believe we fundamentally agree and our posts describe the same reasoning in two different ways.

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