The time at which the signal of climate change emerges from the ‘noise’ of natural climate variability (Time of Emergence, ToE) is a key variable for climate predictions and risk assessments. Continue reading Time of emergence of climate signals
Category Archives: temperature
Uncertainty in temperature variability
It is well known that there is considerable uncertainty in the projected response of climate models to increases in radiative forcing. However, there is also considerable uncertainty in the model simulated internal variability. Continue reading Uncertainty in temperature variability
Climate uncertainty: moving from 'what' to 'when'
Update (23/10/11): The full article has now been published in Nature Climate Change
Climate projections (such as from the IPCC) usually consider the question of “what will happen to our future climate”. But, this question may be more informative if it is changed to “when will it happen”? Continue reading Climate uncertainty: moving from 'what' to 'when'
Uncertainty in uncertainty
There has been much discussion recently on whether GCMs participating in intercomparisons, such as CMIP3 and CMIP5, are ‘independent’. But if they are not, how does this make a difference to the uncertainty in our projections for future climate? Continue reading Uncertainty in uncertainty
Trends in Central England Temperature
Previous posts have discussed climate variability in general, and modelled decadal trends in temperature specifically. However, I should have considered decadal trends in observations as well, especially as there is a long temperature record available for the UK. Continue reading Trends in Central England Temperature
What is a year?
A rather surprising question perhaps, but the answer is, ‘it depends’. There is no climatic reason to define a year from January to December, but that is what is generally done. But, is this the best definition? Continue reading What is a year?
Communicating climate variability
Update 10/03/11 – Accepted article also online. Comments very welcome.
Communicating the differences and links between climate variability and climate change is of growing importance, and I am currently writing an article for “Weather” on this. Continue reading Communicating climate variability
Global mean temperature variability in observations and GCMs
I am often surprised at how different climate models can be. Shown below is the annual mean, global mean surface air temperature from control runs of 21 of the AR4 GCMs, along with the observations (HadCRUT3). Continue reading Global mean temperature variability in observations and GCMs