Climate change: Does it all add up?

Peter Challenor, Professor in Mathematics at the University of Exeter, said: “The question is not whether we can predict climate. It is how well we can predict it. There is no doubt that the world will warm with increasing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere but the models aren’t perfect so we need to quantify what is the uncertainty. Knowing the uncertainties will help manage risk and guide policy formulation.”

Chris Budd, Professor of Applied Maths at the University of Bath and at the Royal Institution said: “There is no doubt that the world’s climate is changing and we need reliable predictions about how the world will warm in the future. To make those predictions, and to make sense of current data, we need good climate models.”

Dr Vicky Pope, Head of Integration and Growth at the Met Office, said: “Over recent years our model development has focussed on answering the key questions for climate science needed to inform decisions including how will current and future emissions affect climate and what do we need to adapt to?

“The Met Office model is a representation of the Earth System which allows us to model the links and feedbacks which determine how greenhouse gases and the climate will change. As we increase computer power we are able to resolve more detail in our models and are seeing the first signs of a step change in our ability to represent variations in the key factors, such as the jet stream and blocking that affect our climate.”

The event will be a mix of presentations and discussion with the audience, allowing everyone to discover and investigate how mathematical models of climate give an objective way of predicting what is likely to happen in the future and that we can make objective assessments as to their reliability.