The first generation Climate Model (BCC_CM1.0) was developed by Beijing Climate Center (BCC) during the Ninth 5-Year Plan period (1996-2000) of China. It is an atmosphere-ocean coupled model, including an atmospheric component – a medium resolution model BCC_AGCM1.0 (T63 spectral model at horizontal resolution approximately 1.875×1.875 with 16 vertical layers) and an ocean component - LASG/NCC OGCM1.0 model with the same horizontal resolution (1.875X1.875) with 30 vertical layers, which was co-developed by the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG) of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Climate Center (NCC or BCC), China Meteorological Administration (CMA). This climate model runs, on a daily basis, with a scheme that couples with the daily surface flux corrections on open ocean surface. Based on the operational BCC_CM1.0 model, the first generation dynamic climate prediction system (DCMPS1.0) was developed, which was officially put into routine short-term climate prediction operationally in 2005. Through operational prediction verifications lasting for 5-6 years, this model basically has the capability to capture seasonal climate anomalies over Asian region in three months ahead.

Since 2004, the atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea-ice coupled climate system model - BCC_CSM1.0 has been developed, which is based on NCAR CCSM2.0. Its atmosphere component was upgraded into BCC_AGCM2.0.1, which dynamically couples with land surface process model CLM3, a global ocean circulation model POP and a global sea ice model CISM through a coupler CPL5.0. The BCC_CSM1.0.1 and CCSM2 mainly differed in atmosphere and land surface models, the former replaced the atmospheric model CAM2.0 with BCC_AGCM2.0.1, with land surface model CLM2 substituted by CLM3. But they both used the same CCSM2.0 model for sea ice and ocean with a horizontal resolution of about 1/3^o-1^o, and 40 vertical layers. BCC_CSM1.0 showed stable performance and certain capability in representing the climate trends in the 20th century, and its projections for climate change scenarios for the 21st century were comparable with the performances of other coupled models used for IPCC AR4.

Based on BCC_CSM1.0, BCC developed a fully-coupled climate system model (version BCC_CSM1.1) including atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea-ice components and incorporating global carbon cycle and dynamic vegetation cover. At the same time, a new AGCM model version (BCC_AGCM2.0.2) was established based on a cumulus parameterization scheme developed by BCC, and an Atmosphere-Vegetation-Interaction-Model including carbon cycle (BCC_AVIM1.1) was developed for describing land processes. BCC_AGCM2.0.2, BCC_AVIM1.1, global ocean circulation model (MOM4_L40) including ocean carbon cycle and bio-geochemical modules and global sea ice simulator (SIS) were dynamically coupled through the flux coupler CPL5.0. This multi-sphere coupled model can also be used to simulate global carbon cycle, satisfying the requirements for relevant modeling experiments related to IPCC AR5. By introducing sources of the carbon emissions from human activities into the model, it can simulate the anthropogenic impacts on climate change. This system has been used for relevant experiments on CMIP5 model inter-comparisons.