Temperature rise exceeds original expectations

Latest global warming predictions defy previous estimates, with higher than expected levels of climate change on the cards. By 2050, temperatures 3 degrees Celsius higher than late Twentieth Century temperatures could be reached, globally.

This new global warming data comes from an innovative study, involving 10,000 climate simulations run on volunteers’ home computers. The predictions have been released in Nature Geoscience, contradicting projections from other models.

People planning for the impacts of climate change need to consider the possibility of warming of up to 3 degrees Celsius by 2050, even on a mid-range emission scenario, researchers claim.

This latest study used atmosphere-ocean climate models and a forecast range from models that reproduce temperature changes observed over the last 50 years. It has been run through climateprediction.net with the BBC Climate Change Experiment.

This method has, however, been questioned, by Julian Hunt, Emeritus Professor of climate modelling at University College London.

“I have reservations about relying on [this] model” he said, “[It] combines land temperatures- which are clearly rising- with sea temperatures which can be subject to big decadal fluctuations.”

However, the project claims to be able to “get a handle” on the range of uncertain outcomes that could be thrown up by the climate system and global warming.

Studies like this latest one are “needed”, claimed Myles Allen, Principal Investigator of climateprediction.net and of the School of Geography and Environment and Department of Physics, Oxford University. Other climate modelling groups’ data, he added, did not “set out to explore the full range of uncertainty.”

Image: A polar bear surviving melting ice | Agrant141 wikimedia