Local and global energy conservation in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM)

Internally inconsistent approximations made in the Community Atmosphere Model result in local violation of energy conservation to the rate of several hundreds of TW when integrated globally, comparable to the total power currently absorbed by the entire observed Earth System -- not just the atmosphere, which is probably absorbing about 1 TW.This problem, which is not unique to CAM among CMIP-class atmosphere models, may cast doubts on its use for current projections of climate change.Fortunately, once understood, it is easily resolved.We show how, and compare simulations with good energy conservation with those currently used in CMIP7 integrations to clarify the impact of non-conservation on the results.