Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Modelling extreme events
Climate change modelling has advanced so rapidly in the last decade that it can now at-
tempt to attribute the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to extreme weather
events. A few years ago this would be unheard of, and the standard communication line
was that scientist could not attribute individual weather events to climate change, but the
event in question may be consistent with what is expected to happen in the future.
However, with increased computer power it is possible to run regional climate scenarios
thousands of times with and without the contribution of anthropogenic GHGs and so assess
the potential impact on the occurrence of extreme weather events. A discernable contribu-
tion of anthropogenic climate change has been found for UK floods in 2000, the Russian
heat wave of 2010, and the Texan and East African droughts of 2011; while no climate
change influence has been found for the floods in Thailand in 2011 or in Pakistan in 2010.
This science though is still in its infancy and throws up sometimes contradictory studies
due to being as yet unable to define what we mean exactly by an anthropogenic climate
change contribution. This complexity is shown by two research papers published relating to
the Russian heat wave of 2010; as: one concluded that climate change had not contributed
to the event while the other concluded that it had. This apparent mismatch was caused by
the papers asking different questions. The first study showed that climate change had had
little or no effect on the magnitude of the Russian heat wave, while the second study
showed that climate change had increased the frequency at which these events could occur
three-fold. This demonstrates the importance of scientists and policy makers asking the
right questions.
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