Climate change has been one of the major issues of global economic and social concerns in the past decade. To quantitatively predict global climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations have organized a multi-national effort to use global atmosphere-ocean models to project anthropogenically induced climate changes in the 21st century. The computer simulations performed with those models and archived by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project - Phase 5 (CMIP5) form the most comprehensive quantitative basis for the prediction of global environmental changes on decadal-to-centennial time scales. While the CMIP5 archives have been widely used for policy making, the inherent biases in the models have not been systematically examined. The main objective of this study is to validate the CMIP5 simulations of the 20th century climate with observations to quantify the biases and uncertainties in state-of-the-art climate models. Specifically, this work focuses on three major features in the atmosphere: the jet streams over the North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the low level jet (LLJ) stream over central North America which affects the weather in the United States, and the near-surface wind field over North America which is relevant to energy applications. The errors in the model simulations of those features are systematically quantified and the uncertainties in future predictions are assessed for stakeholders to use in climate applications. Additional atmospheric model simulations are performed to determine the sources of the errors in climate models. The results reject a popular idea that the errors in the sea surface temperature due to an inaccurate ocean circulation contributes to the errors in major atmospheric jet streams.

For CFD validation, hypersonic flow fields are simulated and compared with experimental data specifically designed to recreate conditions found by hypersonic vehicles. Simulated flow fields on a cone-ogive with flare at Mach 7.2 are compared with experimental data from NASA Ames Research Center 3.5" hypersonic wind tunnel. A parametric study of turbulence models is presented and concludes that the k-kl-omega transition and SST transition turbulence model have the best correlation. Downstream of the flare's shockwave, good correlation is found for all boundary layer profiles, with some slight discrepancies of the static temperature near the surface. Simulated flow fields on a blunt cone with flare above Mach 10 are compared with experimental data from CUBRC LENS hypervelocity shock tunnel. Lack of vibrational non-equilibrium calculations causes discrepancies in heat flux near the leading edge. Temperature profiles, where non-equilibrium effects are dominant, are compared with the dissociation of molecules to show the effects of dissociation on static temperature. Following the validation studies is a parametric analysis of a hypersonic inlet from Mach 6 to 20. Compressor performance is investigated for numerous cowl leading edge locations up to speeds of Mach 10. The variable cowl study showed positive trends in compressor performance parameters for a range of Mach numbers that arise from maximizing the intake of compressed flow. An interesting phenomenon due to the change in shock wave formation for different Mach numbers developed inside the cowl that had a negative influence on the total pressure recovery. Investigation of the hypersonic inlet at different altitudes is performed to study the effects of Reynolds number, and consequently, turbulent viscous effects on compressor performance. Turbulent boundary layer separation was noted as the cause for a change in compressor performance parameters due to a change in Reynolds number. This effect would not be noticeable if laminar flow was assumed. Mach numbers up to 20 are investigated to study the effects of vibrational and chemical non-equilibrium on compressor performance. A direct impact on the trends on the kinetic energy efficiency and compressor efficiency was found due to dissociation.