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Author Archives: Ed Hawkins
Variable variability
The latest global climate models (GCMs) have performed pre-industrial control simulations as part of the CMIP5 coordinated experiments. In these simulations there are no changes to radiative forcings, which are kept fixed at year 1850 values – all the variability … Continue reading
Posted in temperature, variability
3 Comments
Global temperatures: 75 years after Callendar
Could varying concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide cause the planet to warm and cool? This was a key question facing scientists from the mid-1800s onwards – not because of a concern over man-made emissions of CO2, but because of a … Continue reading
Posted in history, observations, temperature, variability
17 Comments
Reliability of regional climate trends
Climate information for the future is usually presented in the form of scenarios: plausible and consistent descriptions of future climate without probability information. This suffices for many purposes, but for the near term, say up to 2050, scenarios of emissions … Continue reading
Posted in GCMs, observations, projections, temperature, uncertainty, variability
3 Comments
Constraining projections with observations
Can past observations be used to help constrain future temperature projections? This question is particularly relevant given the last decade which has shown relatively less warming than expected.
Posted in GCMs, observations, projections, temperature, uncertainty
15 Comments
Updated comparison of simulations and observations
Now that 2012 is over, it is time to update a comparison of simulations and observations of global mean temperatures.
Posted in GCMs, observations, projections, temperature, uncertainty
48 Comments
What will the simulations do next?
Recent conversations on the recent slowdown in warming has inspired an animation on how models simulate this phenomenon, and what it means for the evolution of global temperatures over the next few decades.
Posted in temperature, variability, visualisation
24 Comments
Months since below average temperatures
NOAA have recently been promoting that November 2012 was the 333rd month in a row with above average global temperatures, and this has been widely picked up by the media (e.g. here). But, how useful is this statistic?
Posted in temperature, variability
9 Comments
Predictions of the past & the future
What will happen to the climate over the next decade? Two new analyses consider real climate predictions made in the past and of the future decade.
Posted in predictability, temperature
6 Comments
Temperatures in Mongolia
I was alerted to an article on climate change in Mongolia which claims that temperatures there have already risen by more than 2C since the 1940s. A few minutes on Climate Explorer allowed me to check.
Posted in history, temperature, variability
4 Comments
How “weird” has UK weather been in 2012?
A recent article on the BBC website said: The UK has experienced its “weirdest” weather on record in the past few months, scientists say. The question today is then, is this true?
Posted in history, precipitation, variability, weather
6 Comments
Arctic sea ice in 2013
A very simple straw poll today – will the Arctic sea ice extent in September 2013 be more or less than September 2012? Hoping for views and expectations from public and scientists alike. UPDATE: (06/09/12) Around 80% of the ~100 … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, predictability, variability
11 Comments
Visualising the role of natural variability
A new analysis by Clara Deser and colleagues (accepted for Nature Climate Change), provides some fantastic visualisations of the crucial role of natural variability in how we will experience climate.
Posted in GCMs, projections, temperature, uncertainty, variability, visualisation
14 Comments
Global temperatures over the past decade
It is well known that the past decade or so has seen less global warming than might have been expected – but what is the cause? This is more of a discussion post, rather than any new analysis.
Posted in GCMs, projections, temperature, variability
31 Comments
Projections of maize yields in France
A rather specific question today – what will happen to maize yields in France in 2016-2035?
Posted in crops, precipitation, projections, temperature, uncertainty, variability
3 Comments
A 150 year temperature history from Berkshire
At a recent weather festival, Roger Brugge presented a reconstruction of temperatures from 1863 to 2011 for a small patch of the UK, namely Berkshire, which I found interesting.
Posted in history, temperature
8 Comments
Nice climate figures
“A picture is worth a thousand words”, says the popular adage. It is something that we, as climate scientists, should take seriously, especially given the vast quantities of literature we might read through.
Posted in visualisation
2 Comments
On comparing models and observations
There has been some recent blog discussion on comparing observations and climate models consistently. Here is my effort at such a comparison using the CMIP5 models which are already available.
Posted in GCMs, projections, uncertainty, variability
97 Comments
The value of old weather observations
Previous posts have described some initial analysis of the data from the Old Weather project, which is using public volunteers to digitise new historical weather observations from Royal Navy ships during World War 1. The good news is that these … Continue reading
Posted in history, variability, weather
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Reconstructing Atlantic atmospheric variability
In a previous post I discussed the Old Weather project which is using volunteers to transcribe the hand-written weather data from Royal Navy ships logs in the World War 1 period. The good news is the first 243 ships have … Continue reading
Posted in Atlantic, history, variability, weather
4 Comments
The importance of reliable uncertainty estimates
Reliable estimates of uncertainty are arguably more important than the actual value being quoted. I recently came across a classic example in astronomy.
Posted in uncertainty
14 Comments
Time of emergence of climate signals
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.
Posted in GCMs, temperature, uncertainty, variability
3 Comments
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.
Posted in GCMs, temperature, uncertainty, variability
1 Comment
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 … Continue reading
Posted in GCMs, projections, temperature, uncertainty
7 Comments
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?
Posted in GCMs, projections, temperature, uncertainty
3 Comments
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.
Posted in GCMs, temperature, variability
5 Comments