Scientists have been responding to claims that if they were unable to predict the bad weather how can they predict climate change over the next century?
Scientists have been responding to claims that if they were unable, a few weeks ago, to accurately predict the severe weather that has hit Britain over the past few days, how are they able to accurately predict climate change over the course of the next century?
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Speaking on last night’s Newsnight, Dr Patrick McSharry, research scientist at the Smith School at Oxford University, explained that there is a “big difference” between short-term weather forecasts and long range climate forecasting. He said:
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“If you look at the actual scientific details of what’s been attempted to be calculated there is a huge difference. Before someone generates a forecast they have to validate the model, they have to make sure it adds up to being able to predict the historical events that have gone beforehand and if it’s able to do that then you have some confidence that it will actually work into the future.”
Keith Groves, Director of Operations at the Met Office, added that global warming can only have come from carbon dioxide:
“We do validate our climate models. To actually reproduce the change in temperature that we’ve seen in the last 100 years, the only way you can do that is by adding carbon dioxide into the model, so we have real confidence in the skill of our climate model to replicate the global climate as we move forward.
“That’s completely different to trying to forecast the variability on one month or two month or a season ahead. It’s a completely different application of the science.“
30 Responses to “Long range forecasting is accurate and CO2 does cause global warming”
Joss Garman
Guido – Odds on 2010 will be the hottest year on record.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/08/science-met-office-cold-weather-global-warming-el-nino-hottest-year/
This also continues the trend from this decade. The eight warmest years in the 150 global temperature record are, according to the Hadley Center, in order, 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2007. It’s a fact that this is the hottest decade in recorded history.
All of this said, NASA’s Gavin Schmidt has explained:
“The first point to make is that the climate system has enormous amounts of variability on day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year and decade-to-decade periods. Much of this variability (once you account for the diurnal cycle and the seasons) is apparently chaotic and unrelated to any external factor – it is the weather.”
Yes, there is a difference between weather and climate. Shocking isn’t it.
Daniel
OK, some points on climate science, CO2 and computer modelling.
The biggest greenhouse gas, by volume, is water vapour. Quite hard to sell it as a poison though, and more importantly it is almost impossible to model (water vapour in the atmosphere is non-uniform – clouds). CO2 however is pretty evenly distributed in the atmosphere, with known measurable concentrations – so its fairly easy to model.
It is important to note, that to this day, the DIRECT link between CO2 production and rising global temperatures has simply not been proven. There is no definate casual relationship. At best, people have managed to show rising temperatures (and then only just) and rising CO2 levels, but no mechanism of causailty.
Which, to my mind, is hardly surprising, given C02 is a fairly inert gas, vital to life on earth (its plant food ffs) and is in the atmosphere in tiny amounts (around 350ppm). Its not even a very good “greenhouse” gas – water is much better, and HFCs are 10,000 times more effective.
Lastly, a couple of my friends work in the climate science industry (and yes, it is an industry. One of them described to me the £300m of funding Wales alone spends on climate research). Whilst both are bright, being Cambridge grads, neither did a related subject for their degree, and both are idealogically motivated. They really believe in climate change. As such, I worry about both the quality and he impartiality of their research.
BenM
No Daniel, that is not it at all.
You say that water vapour is a more abundant greenhouse gas than CO2 and you are right. However water vapour is a feedback – as the atmosphere heats, so does its capacity to retain moisture. Besides, most weather systems cycle this water within a few days, the excess being precipitated (and the larger the quantity of water in the atmosphere the heavier and more prolonged the downpours, hence the predictions of more flooding events).
We know that absorption of infra red radiation is a key property of CO2, so we know that the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is likely to lead to increased absorption of infra red radiation as the sun’s rays bounce back off the earth in an attempt to reach space. We know that this will cause the immediate environment of the atmosphere to warm up, and we can see this happening by tracking CO2 levels in the atmosphere alongside the temperature record (as found in ice cores and other proxy sources of data like tree rings etc).
There is little doubt that increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere causes a similar rise in global temperatures. And there are all kinds of feedback mechanisms (the water vapour issue being one of them) which magnifies this effect and makes the issue so dangerous. We have the shrinking of ice caps which at the North Pole exposes more ocean which in turn absorbs more heat which melts more ice and so on. We have the potential exposure of millions of tonnes of more the potent greenhouse gas methane as permafrost melts in arctic latitudes.
You say that some scientists you know get some funding. Well, whoopee-do! What do you expect researchers to do? Live off rations and set up research just for the fun of it?! There are lots of AGW deniers who receive funding too, and much of that is from elements with a direct interest in muddying the waters and casting doubt on the research and integrity of climate scientists. To me, that is bordering on the immoral. Yet you’re more concerned with your hare-brained pet conspiracy. Bizarre.
Oxford Kevin
Can Daniel show evidence for the Welsh funding of £300 million?
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[…] figures at the Met Office, like director of operations Keith Groves, who, as Left Foot Forward reported in January, explained to Newsnight: “To actually reproduce the change in temperature that […]