climateprediction.net Predicting 21 st Century Climate

Transcription

1 climateprediction.net Predicting 21 st Century Climate Sylvia Knight, Myles Allen, Charlotte Calnan, Peter Campbell, Jonathan Gray, June Haighton, John Harris, Jules Hoult, Andrew Hunt, Robert Lang, Angela Melamed, Hannah Pomroy, David Sang and Mary Whitehouse, and about 100,000 other people worldwide!

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3 Introduction to the climateprediction.net project and how to join in Climateprediction.net in schools teaching resources

4 Climateprediction.net is an ambitious new scientific experiment aiming to produce the most comprehensive probability based forecast of 21 st Century climate ever attempted. The experiment should give policy makers a better scientific basis for addressing one of the biggest potential global problems of the 21 st century.

5 The Goals: climateprediction.net To harness the power of idle PCs to help quantify uncertainty in predictions of the 21st century climate. To improve public understanding of the nature of uncertainty in climate prediction. The Method: Invite the public to download a full resolution, 3D climate model and run it locally on their PC. Use each PC to run a single member of a massive, perturbed physics ensemble. Provide visualization software and educational packages to maintain interest and facilitate school participation etc.

6 Uncertainties in climate scenarios

7 Photo courtesy of Dave Mitchell How do we quantify the risk of this happening (again)?

8 Excess mortality rates in early August 2003 indicate 22,000-35,000 heat-related deaths Daily mortality in Baden-Württemberg

9 Was the hot summer of 2003 due to climate change? Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have doubled the risk of a summer like 2003 By 2050, it could be that hot every other summer

10 Source: IPCC Third Assessment Report, 2001

11 2080 temperature change (K) 2080 precipitation change (%) Source: Mat Collins, Hadley Centre We can produce very detailed predictions of climate change with no idea of how reliable they might be

12 Sources of Uncertainty Basic sources of uncertainty in climate forecasts: Incomplete knowledge of the initial state of the system Weather is chaotic, climate is not

13 Why the fact that Weather is Chaotic matters temperature x x x x x x x x x x x x x x precipitation Climate is the average of the weather On any particular day, the weather may be very different to the climate The weather on one day is more likely to be similar to the day before than to be totally different If you only looked at the weather of a couple of years, you might get a biased view of the climate So, to get an accurate climate, you either need to run a model with the same atmospheric composition for a long period of time (hundreds or thousands or years), or you need to run many models with different initial conditions many times for a shorter period.

14 Sources of Uncertainty Basic sources of uncertainty in climate forecasts: Incomplete knowledge of the initial state of the system Uncertainty in future forcings

15 Sources of Uncertainty Basic sources of uncertainty in climate forecasts: Incomplete knowledge of the initial state of the system Uncertainty in future forcings Uncertain models - poor/incomplete representation of the physical processes that govern the climate

16 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) Parameter: RHcrit CT CW - land CW - sea VF1 Range: ( ) 5x x10-4 1x10-4 2x10-3 2x10-5 5x Standard values 0.7 1x10-4 2x10-4 5x10-5 1

17 Climate Sensitivity

18 Each Model is Unique Perturbed physics ensemble Initial condition ensemble Boundary Conditions (forcing) ensemble Standard model set-up Unique model This many simulations cannot be achieved using the supercomputers traditionally available to climate scientists. So, climateprediction.net tried a new approach asking members of the public to donate spare time on their home, school and work computers.

19 Experiment Design Expt 1: GCM with thermodynamic ocean. Aim: To identify parameter combinations which have little effect on the mean climate but a large effect on climate sensitivity. Evaluate perturbations to atmosphere/ocean fluxes. Calibration Derived fluxes 15 yr, 2 x CO 2 Double CO2 Diagnostics from final 8 yrs. 15 yr spin-up 15 yr, base case CO 2 Control Expt 2: Fully coupled model. Distribute pre-packaged packaged simulations of Compare with observations. Make a forecast using

20 Experiment 1 Since September 2003, 150,000 participants in 142 countries have completed 150, year GCM runs computed 11 million model years donated 9,000 years of computing time

21 The most powerful computer in the world?

22 Experiment 1 First Results - does this method work? 1000 bigger ensemble than has ever been achieved so far Sampled more extreme sensitivities than have ever been seen before

23 Experiment 2 BBC Climate Change Experiment

24 How to Participate 1. Participants download their own unique model at bbc.cpdn.org. 2. The download, consists of the model as well as a visualisation package. 3. The model runs in the background whenever the computer is switched on, and takes a minimum of 3 months, depending on computer specification. 4. While the model is running, participants are able to watch the climate develop in their own unique simulation of the world. 5. The model returns data to climateprediction.net scientists. 6. A summary of the results is displayed on the project web pages

25 Solar Energy

26 Greenhouse Gases

27 Very first results

28 Since 14/2/06, 125,000 people in 152 countries 93,000 in the U.K. 324 in Sweden!

29 Watch your unique modelled climate change over hours, days, weeks

30 Temperature Will the results of experiment 3 look like this made up figure?

31 climateprediction.net in Schools With funding from the Nuffield Foundation Geography Science Maths

32 Schools Materials 14 + U.K. Syllabus specific materials Easy to use for teachers Encourage schools to join the experiment Unique, distinct and genuinely useful Climate, Climate change, Models and Prediction Mainly based on the first experiment

33 Student Visualisation Interface

34 Warm front Warm front Treacherous driving conditions Good day to stay in bed 11 th -18 th December 1828, London

35 14+ Variety of simple climate models involving dice, excel, bottles of water, calculators.. Discussion excercises, role playing Investigating weather and climate Analysis of numbers, data sets.. Exploring climateprediction.net results incoming solar radiation outgoing radiation The Earth

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38 Simple Climate Model T=(incoming radiation-σt 4 ) x t % C

39 More Advanced Climate Change Model Global temperature relative to average Degrees Year

40 The Day After Tomorrow scientific truth, political agenda or just a disaster movie? - Background information -Film Reviews - Surveys of public opinion

41 Chaos Theory

42 Participate in a cutting-edge scientific experiment, using the Met Office s state-of-the-art forecasting model on school and home computers Unique resource for project work and extension activities in geography, science, geography, ICT, maths. Practical exploration of models, climate, climate prediction and climate change Ideal opportunity to embed ICT in teaching Free to download, translate, develop The materials do not all rely on participation in the experiment

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44 Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get

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46 Climate Challenge Game Climate Challenge is a fun and engaging simulation game designed to inform players about climate concerns and to engage them in understanding how a country s decisions on resources can affect the climate Can you tackle the challenges of global climate change?

47 Schools Competition Sweden, UK and New Zealand Run climate models on school or students home computers, to produce a forecast for each other s countries Sweden for the U.K. U.K. for New Zealand New Zealand for Sweden Come together by video conference in July to share results

48 Important things to know Need 1 teacher and about 10 students from the same school to take part commitment to spend at least 4, 1 hour sessions looking at the project Need to run the BBC Climate Change Experiment on at least 1, preferably more computers at school or at home, using the same address to register, starting NOW Contact me sknight@atm.ox.ac.uk if you want to take part

49 This talk will be available at if you d like to look at anything again!

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