Hadley Centre Decadal Climate Prediction System

August 9, 2007 at 6:44 pm | Posted in Climate change, Climate model, Hadley Centre | 2 Comments

Science 10 August 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5839, pp. 746 – 747
DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5839.746

CLIMATE CHANGE: Humans and Nature Duel Over the Next Decade’s Climate

Richard A. Kerr

Rising greenhouse gases are changing global climate, but during the next few decades natural climate variations will have a say as well, so researchers, including a team reporting on page 796 of this week’s issue of Science, are scrambling to factor them in.
Read the Full Text

(but I cannot, as it’s behind a paywall …)

However, I think ^that^ Science article might be might be the one referred to by BBC News, USA Today, Nature and Guardian (amongst others). They all write about a new 10-year climate model from the Hadley Centre referred to as the Decadal Climate Prediction System (DePreSys), and based on a well established climate model already used by Hadley Centre scientists, for example:

Ten-year climate model unveiled
BBC News, UK
Scientists say they have developed a model to predict how ocean currents, as well as human activities, will affect temperatures over the next decade.

By including short-term natural events, such as El Nino, a UK team says it is able to offer 10-year projections.

Models have previously focused on how the globe will warm over a century.

Writing in Science, Met Office researchers project that at least half of the years between 2009 and 2014 are likely to exceed existing records.
…
Doug Smith, a climate scientist at the Hadley Centre, explained how the new model differed from existing ones.

“On a 10-year timescale, both natural internal variability and the global warming signal (human induced climate change) are important; whereas looking out to 2100, only the global warming signal will dominate.”

Climate model predicts hot decade USA Today
Model approach to climate prediction Nature.com (subscription)
Global warming: Met Office predicts plateau then record temperatures Guardian Unlimited

2 Comments »

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  1. I’ve been puzzled finding very few comments about this; has anyone a pointer to any discussion in public, or have the journal firewalls captured any comments on Hadley’s 10-year paper?

    Comment by Hank Roberts— January 31, 2008 #

  2. Hi Hank,

    Since I posted this link, I found the article that I believe the newspapers were really referring to, but still all I can access is the abstract:

    Science
    Reports
    Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model

    Doug M. Smith,* Stephen Cusack, Andrew W. Colman, Chris K. Folland, Glen R. Harris, James M. Murphy

    Previous climate model projections of climate change accounted for external forcing from natural and anthropogenic sources but did not attempt to predict internally generated natural variability. We present a new modeling system that predicts both internal variability and externally forced changes and hence forecasts surface temperature with substantially improved skill throughout a decade, both globally and in many regions. Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.

    Met office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Ex1 3PB, UK.

    So, if nobody chips in here, perhaps I shall forward your enquiry to the MetOffice …

    Comment by inel— February 1, 2008 #


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