Climate prediction

Recent revisions to the boundary conditions (ice-sheet topography and sea surface temperatures) have added uncertainty to many of the GCM calculations of the past two decades. Moreover, all of these calculations use prescriptions for at least one central component of the climate system, generally oceanic heat transport and/or sea surface temperatures. This limits the predictive benefit of the models. Nonetheless, these models are the only appropriate way to integrate physical models of diverse aspects of the Earth systems into a unified climate prediction tool. 

Shukla J, Hagedom R, Hoskins B, Kinter J, Marotzke J, Miller M, Palmer TN, Slingo J (2009) Revolution in climate prediction is both necessary and possible. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 175-178. doi 10.1175/2008BAMS2759.1... 

The drop in tooth enamel 8lsO in excess of the global climate prediction (i.e., the 8lsO residual) can be converted into an apparent increase in elevation (Fig. 14). Quantitatively, the... 

Studies of the paleoclimate, especially of sudden short-term changes (Kukla, 2000), are important to understand the laws of the present climate and climate prediction. 

Greenhouse effect Greenhouse gases Absorption of 1R radiation Feedback mechanisms Climate predictions... 

To relate the long-scale variations in the Black Sea to the global climatic meteorological cycles, we used NAO, SOI, and NIN03 climatic indices, obtained from the International Research Institute of Climate Prediction (Columbia University, USA). NAO is defined as the monthly averaged difference between the standardized measurements of the sea level atmospheric pressure in Azores and Iceland. SOI is the difference between the standardized measurements of the sea level atmospheric pressure in Tahiti and Darwin, Australia. NIN03 index is determined as the SST anomalies over the eastern tropical Pacific (5°S-5°N 150°W-90°W). 

The expense of such multifactor experiments has led scientists to use process-based ecosystem models (see the discussion of terrestrial carbon models below) to predict the response of terrestrial ecosystems to future climates. When predicting the effects of CO2 alone, six global biogeochemical models showed a global terrestrial sink that began in the early part of the twentieth century and increased (with one exception) towards the year 2100 (Cramer et al., 2001). The maximum sink varied from 4 PgC yr to —10 PgC yr. Adding changes in climate (predicted by the Hadley Centre) to these models reduced the future sink (with one exception), and in one case reduced the sink to zero near the year 2100. 

Wallace, J.M., and D.W.J. Thompson, Annular modes and climate prediction. Phys Today 28, 2002. 

Our subject of discussion in this chapter is global climate prediction and the uncertainties of such predictions. What do we mean by a prediction of climate E. Lorenz, the father of the chaos theory (Gleick, 1988), once clarified the important difference between forecasts of climate anomalies, such as the one caused by the El Nino phenomenon, and forecasts of the state of climate caused by changes in the solar forcing or by changes in the composition of the atmosphere. The first of these phenomena can in principle be predicted per se with useful skill, while in the second case only changes in the statistical structure of climate can be predicted. We will not be able to say whether a particular summer or winter will be warmer or colder than normal but only say, for example, that the number of summers with a temperature above a certain value will be more common than what it was previously. In this chapter I will use the expression climate prediction only in the context of the ability to simulate or predict the overall statistics of climate. 

These considerations and the additional fact that climate is the integral of weather over long periods of time, the weather itself being unpredictable, mean that the predictability of climate is a fundamental issue. The uncertainties of global climate prediction are a broad subject and I will here restrict my presentation to a time scale of a few hundred years and thereby concentrate on the time from early industrialization to the middle of the next century or so. 

Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect. A Briefing from the Hadley Centre, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, UK Meteorological Office, Exeter, December 2005 (see also New Scientist, 12 February 2005, 41). 

Lowndes I.S., Yang Z.Y. Jobling S., et al, 2006. A Parametric Analysis of a Tunnel Climatic Prediction and Planning Model, Tunneling and Underground Space Technology 21 520-532. 

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