A comparison of the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) Interactive Modeling Project for Atmospheric Chemistry and Transport (IMPACT) model's dynamical characteristics with assimilated data sets and observations is presented to demonstrate the ability of the model to represent the dynamical characteristics of Earth's troposphere and stratosphere. The LaRC IMPACT model is a coupled chemical/dynamical general circulation model (GCM) of the Earth's atmosphere extending from the surface to the lower mesosphere. It has been developed as a tool for assessing the effects of chemical, dynamical, and radiative coupling in the stratosphere on the Earth's climate. The LaRC IMPACT model winds and temperatures are found to be in fairly good agreement with Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) assimilated winds and temperatures in the lower stratosphere. The model upper stratospheric zonal mean temperatures are also in good agreement with the UARS-UKMO climatology except for a cold winter pole which results from the upward extension of the cold vortex temperatures and an elevated winter stratopause in the model. The cold pole bias is consistent with the overprediction of the winter stratospheric jet strength, and is characteristic of stratospheric GCMs in general. The model northern and southern hemisphere stratospheric eddy heat and momentum fluxes are within the expected interannual variability of the UARS-UKMO climatology. The combined effects of water vapor transport, radiative, convective, and planetary boundary layer parameterizations are shown to produce tropospheric winds and circulation statistics that are in good agreement with the UARS-UKMO climatology, although the model tropopause and upper tropospheric temperatures are generally cold relative to the UARS-UKMO temperatures. Comparisons between the model and UARS-UKMO climatology indicate that the model does a reasonable job in reproducing the frequency of observed synoptic-scale storms during the northern and southern hemisphere winters. Generally good agreement is found between the model and observations in the distribution of outgoing longwave radiation and precipitable water. However, the model precipitation and cloud distributions are influenced by spectral truncation errors which indicate that the T32 spectral resolution of the model is probably not adequate to accurately represent coupling between localized convection and large-scale water vapor transport. The agreement between the observed and model stratospheric circulation and temperatures, reasonableness of the model stratospheric wave driving, and stability of the model climatology provides confidence that the LaRC IMPACT model is appropriate for multiyear coupled radiation/chemistry/dynamics studies of the stratosphere.