1. Climate change mash-ups
Michael Saunby
Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change
September 2007
© Crown copyright 2007

2. Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change
Branch of the Met Office
(The United Kingdom’s national meteorological service)‏
Opened in Moved from Bracknell to Exeter in 2004.
“The Hadley Centre has the highest concentration of absolutely outstanding people who do absolutely outstanding work, spanning the breadth of modelling, attribution, and data analysis, of anywhere in the world.” Dr Susan Solomon, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Co-chair IPCC AR4 WG1
Met Office was established in 1854 by Admiral FitzRoy (of HMS Beagle fame).
To protect shipping and mariners.
Now owned by the MOD and operating as a Trading Fund.
Also known in aviation circles as WAFC London. The only other world area forecast centre in WAFC Washington (actually in Missouri).
Employs about 1800 staff, most based at Exeter HQ.
© Crown copyright 2007

3. Land areas are projected to warm more than the oceans with the greatest warming at high latitudes
Annual mean temperature change, 2071 to 2100 relative to 1990:
Global Average in = 3.1oC
© Crown copyright 2007

4. How quickly the climate changes in future depends on
Predicting Climate Change
How quickly the climate changes in future depends on
How much greenhouse gas emissions grow
depends on population growth, energy use, new technologies, etc.
How sensitive the climate system is to emissions
how clouds, ice, oceans etc. respond to the extra heating
There are many questions around climate change and many drivers. But what do we mean by the climate system?
What questions are we able to answer?
Attribution, mitigation, and adaptation Uncertainty
Advise government on climate change Focus for national research Threats and impacts of climate change Shorter time scales
© Crown copyright 2007

5. Projections of Climate Change
© Crown copyright 2007

6. Predicting Climate Change
EMISSIONS
Scenarios from
population, energy,
economics models
Carbon cycle and
chemistry models
Gas properties
Coupled climate
models
Regional climate models
Impacts models
CONCENTRATIONS
CO2, methane, etc.
Feedbacks
HEATING EFFECT
‘Climate Forcing’.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Temp, rain, sea-level, etc.
At present generate approx. 1TByte of climate model output (1000 GByte) per day!
Feedbacks
REGIONAL DETAIL
Local effects, extremes
IMPACTS
Flooding, food supply, etc.
© Crown copyright 2007 6

7. Impact of 2x CO2 on plant productivity
Impacts Uncertainty
Impact of 2x CO2 on plant productivity
Mean change
Uncertainty range
Difference between 95th and 5th percentiles
© Crown copyright 2007

8. Changes in water stress between 1971-2000 and 2071-2100
Large areas show increasing water stress throughout 21st century
© Crown copyright 2007

9. Human health – modelled low level ozone
Current low-level Ozone concentration
Yellow, orange & red colours highlight
concentrations above 60ppb – the WHO
8 hr exposure dose guideline
Future ozone concentrations projected
to rise above WHO guideline level in
many (esp. highly populated) locations
Future low-level Ozone concentration – 2090s
© Crown copyright 2007 9

10. Number of people flooded by 2050s due to sea level rise and population change
Largest increases in number of people flooded (>2 million per year)
expected in Bangladesh, south-east India and east coast of China
Figure Courtesy of Betts and Best 2004 (Betwixt)‏
© Crown copyright 2007

11. Let’s mash it up!
When enough people can collect, re-use and distribute public sector information, people organise around it in new ways, creating new enterprises and new communities... In the past, only large companies, government or universities were able to re-use and recombine information. Now, the ability to mix and 'mash' data is far more widely available.
(Mayo and Steinberg, 2007)‏
© Crown copyright 2007

12.
Met Office Hadley Centre FitzRoy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom
© Crown copyright This work is the intellectual property of the Met Office. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Met Office. To disseminate otherwise or to republish required written permission from the Met Office.
© Crown copyright 2007