Krasnoyarsk Public Oct05
Krasnoyarsk Public Oct05
Sylvia Knight,
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics,
University of Oxford
The Day After Tomorrow
Talk Outline
• What is “climate” and why do we think it is changing?
• How can we predict climate when we can’t predict the
weather?
• What are the main uncertainties in climate prediction?
• Simulating climate change: the science of climate
modelling.
• Using spare capacity on personal computers for global
climate prediction.
• Predictions for the 21st century
• Extreme events
• Solutions?
What is the Climate?
SUN
…but some IR is
trapped by some
gases in the air,
thus reducing the
cooling….
Sunlight
passes
through the
atmosphere..
Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wing in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?
Ed Lorenz
The climate is like a
game of roulette…
Parameters perturbed
• Critical Relative Humidity (RHcrit)
- related to the cloud cover distribution in a grid box.
• Accretion constant (CT)
- related to growth of rain droplets and lifetime of clouds.
• Condensation nuclei concentration (CW)
- affects water holding capacity and lifetime of clouds.
• Ice fall velocity (VF1)
Overall embedded-ensemble
Standard model
set-up
www.climateprediction.net
Climateprediction.net experiment design
Experiment 1 (September 2003 – end 2005)
Traditional range
Standard model
version
Low sensitivity
model
High sensitivity
model
Regional Behaviour – European Precipitation
Mediterranean Basin Northern Europe
Winter
Winter
Summer
Summer
Annual Annual
From NASA’s
MODIS - Moderate
Resolution Imaging
Spectrometer,
courtesy of Reto
Stöckli, ETHZ
Excess mortality rates in early August 2003 indicate 22,000
- 35,000 heat-related deaths
We can’t say.
www.climateprediction.net
Since September 2003,
105,000 participants in 142 countries (514 in Russia)
have
completed 115,000 45 -year model runs
computed 8 million model years
donated 8,000 years of computing time
Temperature 2000 - 2100