ECHAM is a general circulation model (GCM) developed by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the research organisations of the Max Planck Society. It was created by modifying global forecast models developed by ECMWF to be used for climate research. The model was given its name as a combination of its origin (the 'EC' being short for 'ECMWF') and the place of development of its parameterisation package, Hamburg. The default configuration of the model resolves the atmosphere up to 10 hPa (primarily used to study the lower atmosphere), but it can be reconfigured to 0.01 hPa for use in studying the stratosphere and lower mesosphere.