Modeling in the Geosciences
Numerical models are a novel tool used to predict changes, visualize processes, and identify relationships for the advance of scientific research. Models combine a culmination of years of scientific research in physics, statistics, and data collection into one place where scenarios can be interpreted and predicted. As with much of research within the geosciences, modelers have to reconcile with uncertainty and assumptions as they try to simplify the complexities of the real world into a comprehensible result. A modeler’s goal is not necessarily to recreate the exact reality of the geological world, but rather better define the bounds of what is possible or not possible in terms of processes, time, and scale to produce an observable phenomenon within data or physics. In the Geosciences, one type of tool and field of study are Landscape Evolution Models (or LEMs). They are used to recreate processes at the surface. Based on physical equations, it is possible to look at the evolution of h