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SUMMARY:After Climategate and Cancun\; What Next for Climate Science? - Pa
 lmer\, T (Oxford)
DTSTART:20101206T170000Z
DTEND:20101206T180000Z
UID:TALK28304@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:The last year has been a difficult time for climate science\, 
 with leaked emails undermining public confidence and perhaps contributing 
 to the failure of Copenhagen to reach agreement on emissions cuts. On top 
 of this\, mid-term elections in the US suggest it will be difficult for Pr
 esident Obama to carry into leglislation any substantial agreements on emi
 ssions cuts that may be made in Cancun\, making the chances of such agreem
 ents less likely in the first place.\n\nHow does climate science move forw
 ard in the light of these events? The evidence above suggests\, whether we
  like it or not\, that the arguments of so-called climate "sceptics"\, tha
 t the cost of major emssions cuts is not justified given existing uncertai
 nties in climate predictions\, have substantial political traction. Hence 
 I believe that we are unlikely to move from the current stalemate without 
 further advancing the science of climate change\, in particular without re
 ducing these uncertainties substantially. But this is not an easy task. In
  this talk I will review why these uncertainties exist in the first place.
  Ultimately\, as we shall see\, the issue is mathematical - we know the eq
 uations of climate at the level of partial differential equations\, but we
  do not know how to solve these equations without at the same time produci
 ng biases and errors which are as large as the climate signal we are tryin
 g to predict. I will outline two new areas of work\, which have been a foc
 us of activity at the Isaac Newton Institute over the last four months\, d
 esigned to reduce uncertainty in climate prediction. One is in the area of
  stochastic closure schemes for climate models\, the other is in the area 
 of data assimilation.\n\nPutting this new science into practice\, however\
 , is not straightforward\, and will require new computing infrastructure h
 itherto unavailable to climate science. Hence\, I will conclude with a ple
 a to the governments of the world. Let's take the current stalemate of opi
 nion as justifying a renewed effort to do all we humanly can to reduce exi
 sting uncertainties in predictions of climate change\, globally and region
 ally\, so we can move the argument forward\, one way or the other\, for th
 e good of humanity. This will require a new sense of dedication both by sc
 ientists and by politicians around the world - by scientists to focus thei
 r efforts on the science needed to reduce uncertainties\, and by politicia
 ns to fund the technological infrastructure needed to enable this science 
 to be done as effectively and speedily as possible. 
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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