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Walker Institute scientists are taking a leading role in a major international summit which aims to revolutionise the way we predict climate change.
Professor Julia Slingo, Founding Director of the Walker Institute, argues that the accurate climate change predictions required by society, from governments to insurance companies, cannot be supplied by the current generation of climate models or by the computing power currently available. She will be calling for international co-operation to build a new generation of much higher resolution climate models and the supercomputers needed to run them.
The reality of climate change has been accepted. Governments are now basing their strategies for reducing emissions and adapting to climate change on predictions of the levels of risk provided by the scientific community.
But how reliable are these predictions? As reflected in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, there continues to be considerable uncertainty in predictions of the magnitude of global warming. Moreover, uncertainties in regional climate change, (e.g., of changes in the severity of floods, droughts and storms) are even bigger.
The World Modelling Summit for Climate Prediction being held in Reading, UK from 6-9 May, will develop an international strategy to significantly improve predictions of climate change. Scientists consider such a revolution necessary and possible because of major advances in scientific understanding and the ever increasing power of computers.
Read the University of Reading press release. |
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"The summit is set to lay out a roadmap to deliver more reliable predictions of climate change, especially at the regional and local level" says Prof Slingo, Founding Director of the Walker Institute.
" With climate models we know how to make them much better to provide much more information at the local level... we know how to do that, but we don't have the computing power to deliver it."
"But there is room for optimism. We are seeing major advances in climate modelling and in supercomputing technology. There is no doubt that by working together, and with sufficient investment, we can achieve significant improvements." |
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Media coverage
Prof Julia Slingo was interviewed on the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 and by BBC Radio South on Tuesday 6th May.
Dr Pier Luigi Vidale was interviewed by BBC Newsnight, screened Tuesday 6th May.
See coverage on the BBC website.
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