| ABL | Atmospheric Boundary Layer |
| AMIP | Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project |
| AMWG | Atmospheric Model Working Group |
| BATS | Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme |
| CAM | Community Atmosphere Model |
| CAPE | Convectively Available Potential Energy |
| CCM | Community Climate Model |
| CCN | Cloud Condensation Nucleus |
| CCSM | Community Climate System Model |
| CFC | Chloro-Fluoro Carbon |
| CFL | Courant-Friedrichs-Levy Condition |
| CGD | NCAR Climate and Global Dynamics Division |
| CGS | Centimeters/grams/seconds |
| CKD | Clough-Kneizys-Davies |
| CLM | Community Land Model |
| CMS | (NCAR) Climate Modeling Section |
| CSIM | Community Sea-Ice Model |
| CWP | Condensed Water Path |
| DAO | (NASA Goddard) Data Assimilation Office |
| DAS | Data Assimilation System |
| DISORT | DIScrete-Ordinate method Radiative Transfer |
| ECMWF | European Centre for Medium Range Forecasts |
| EOF | Empirical Orthogonal Function |
| FASCODE | FASt atmosphere Signature Code |
| FFSL | Flux-Form Semi-Lagrangian Transport |
| FFT | Fast Fourier Transform |
| FV/fv | Finite Volume |
| GCM | General Circulation Model |
| GENLN | General Line-by-line Atmospheric Transmittance and Radiance Model |
| GEOS | Goddard Earth Observing System |
| GFDL | Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory |
| GSFC | Goddard Space Flight Center |
| GMT | Greenwich Mean Time |
| HadISST | Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research SST |
| HITRAN | High-resolution Transmission Molecular Absorption Database |
| ICA | Independent Column Approximation |
| IPCC | International Panel on Climate Change |
| KNMI | Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute |
| LBL | Line by line |
| LCL | Lifting condensation level |
| LSM | Land Surface Model |
| MATCH | Model for Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry |
| M/R | Maximum/Random overlap |
| NASA | National Space Administration |
| NCAR | National Center for Atmospheric Research |
| NCEP | National Center for Environmental Prediction |
| NOAA | National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration |
| NWP | Numerical Weather Prediction |
| OI | Optimal Interpolation |
| OPAC | Optical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds |
| PBL | Planetary Boundary Layer |
| PCMDI | Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison |
| PPM | Piece-wise Parabolic Method |
| RHS | Right Hand Side |
| RMS | Root-mean Square |
| SCMO | Sufficient Condition for Monotonicity |
| SI | International System of Units |
| SOM | Slab Ocean Model |
| SST | Sea-surface temperature |
| TOA | Top Of Atmosphere |
| TOM | Top Of Model |
| UCAR | University Corporation for Atmospheric Research |
| WKB | Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin approximation |