From the “worse than we thought” department comes this new climate model, but at least they acknowledge the pause.
The next few years could be “anomalously warm”, according to a new study.
Researchers have developed a mathematical model to predict how average global surface air temperatures will vary over the next few years.
The results suggest that the period from 2018 to 2022 could see an increased likelihood of extreme temperatures.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.
The warming caused by emissions of greenhouse gases like CO2 is not increasing at a perfectly steady rate.
In the early years of the 21st Century, scientists pointed to a hiatus in warming. But several analyses show that the five warmest years on record all have taken place since 2010.
These variations from year-to-year do not affect the long-term trend in warming temperatures.
Now, a new method for trying to predict global temperatures suggests the next few years will be hotter than expected.
Rather than using traditional climate simulation techniques, Florian Sévellec, from the CNRS in Brest, France, and Sybren S Drijfhout, from the University of Southampton, developed a statistical method to search through simulations of climatic conditions in the 20th and 21st Century and look for situations that are comparable to the present day.
Future possibilities
The team then used these climatic “analogues” to deduce future possibilities.
In particular, the anomalous warmth predicted over the next few years is due to a low probability of intense cold climatic events.
Once the algorithm is “learned” (a process which takes a few minutes), predictions are obtained in a few hundredths of a second on a laptop. In comparison, supercomputers require a week using traditional simulation methods.
Gabi Hegerl, professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study, said: “The authors have tried to predict whether global climate variability will make the next years warmer or cooler overall than the mean warming trend. They have skilfully used worldwide climate model data for previous years to calculate probabilities for the next few years.
“The findings suggest it’s more likely we’ll get warmer years than expected in the next few years.
Full article here
As noted further in the article, the result is “purely statistical”, so take it with a grain of salt, because I suspect the “learning” part of the algorithm doesn’t handle long-term natural variation well at all, just like the short term memory of humans often can’t recall the intensity of weather events in the far past. Of course, humans programmed this, so…
UPDATE: Here’s the paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05442-8
A novel probabilistic forecast system predicting anomalously warm 2018-2022 reinforcing the long-term global warming trend
Abstract
In a changing climate, there is an ever-increasing societal demand for accurate and reliable interannual predictions. Accurate and reliable interannual predictions of global temperatures are key for determining the regional climate change impacts that scale with global temperature, such as precipitation extremes, severe droughts, or intense hurricane activity, for instance. However, the chaotic nature of the climate system limits prediction accuracy on such timescales. Here we develop a novel method to predict global-mean surface air temperature and sea surface temperature, based on transfer operators, which allows, by-design, probabilistic forecasts. The prediction accuracy is equivalent to operational forecasts and its reliability is high. The post-1998 global warming hiatus is well predicted. For 2018–2022, the probabilistic forecast indicates a warmer than normal period, with respect to the forced trend. This will temporarily reinforce the long-term global warming trend. The coming warm period is associated with an increased likelihood of intense to extreme temperatures. The important numerical efficiency of the method (a few hundredths of a second on a laptop) opens the possibility for real-time probabilistic predictions carried out on personal mobile devices.
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“They have skilfully used worldwide climate model data for previous years to calculate probabilities for the next few years.”
Why does the use of the word “skilfully” ring some kind of alarm bell?
UK media has (of course) gone ga-ga for this latest climate tittle-tattle despite it not being worth the paper it’s printed on. We’ve had 5 years of drab cold and lousy summers which the UK Met Office pronounced was the new normal. Incredibly nobody at the UKMO predicted this would be a scorching summer. Imagine my surprise.
These people are demonstrating the same predictive powers as a blind monkey chucking chicken giblets in a dish and dancing around a camp fire naked at midnight before ‘predicting’ this weekends lotto numbers, except they’re getting paid more than the monkey.
“developed a statistical method to search through simulations of climatic conditions”
Pure hocus pocus. Like people sho look at the shape of share value charts and predict future share value movement, while ignoring economic fundamentals, this is nothing but witch craft and superstition.
Gee i tell you what the last 3 years have seen great snow conditions here in OZ. This year the best for about 20 years I reckon?
I “liked” this for the laugh
last time they said that BBQ summer?-it was really cold n wet;-)
This is a completely invalid technique. Lets match weather maps from the past to today. Can you find an identical map? The answer is no, unless you choose a very small area, which clearly is uselss as weather and climate are not local phenomena! Matching simulations (which are really just weather maps) is equally invalid. Try matching maps on a series of days to predict the future and you will find that he entire technique doesn’t work! Surely they tried this before publishing? As I understand it they are effectively matching computer model outputs, but as these only indicate a few parameters at intervals they must be completely meaningless by my analysis above.
Let’s see….
A new El Niño cycle is developing, ergo, global temps will rise a little for about 2 years, until ireplaced by a subsequent La Niña cycle seating in in about 3~4 years…
How do I collect my $3 million for figuring this out?….
I do not think global temperatures will be rising. Look at the overall sea surface temperature trend.
But, if a butterfly flaps it’s wings next to my car, we’re may have “hellish” winters during the summer. (Have to get that weasel word in there)
“Worse than we thought”
doesn’t scare anyone.
Here’s what I recommend:
“Scientists say the future climate will be
ten times worse than the most pessimistic
forecast made last year — a forecast made by scientist
Mortimer Snerdly, PhD, whose dismal forecast
was severely mocked by Donald Trump and his
science denier cult !”
“They have skilfully used worldwide climate model data for previous years to calculate probabilities for the next few years.” Does that mean they used the input data for the climate models or output data from the models? Regardless they are using climate models to feed their models.
I wonder what odds Vegas has on this happening?
I bought some bathroom fittings which failed miserably to meet their specification and as a result crossed them off the list as possible suppliers for future products. Climate scientists had a product called global warming based on average temperatures which was going to deliver doom about a year ago now. While this was not a product I wished for it nevertheless was a total failure as a product and I see no reason I should buy into their current product which like the previous one does not stand up to any scrutiny.
In fact it is even more dubious in that if the warming is regional then average figures are totally meaningless as a shift in the location of hotter areas rather than any actual change can result in huge differences in the average.
To me the BBC has become a trendy lefty politically driven organisation worthy of nothing but utter contempt which I bitterly resent being threatened into funding by a long prison term when they are not even remotely held to their impartiality obligations.
Why should we believe this model to be any more accurate than all of the failed models from the past 30 years? The answer is this one will be just as inaccurate as all the rest
What is the probability of the BBC running news coverage of a model predicting cooling in the next few years based on long-term, natural climate (ocean) cycles turning down?
Under the random walk assumption the next summers in the UK should have an above average temperatures and weather in my experience is pretty random.
Could be a good approach, however it must fail having only the earth + athmosphere inside the observed boundary. The sun as the main „actuator“ (the radiation energy hitting the earth in one hour is equivalent to the worldwide energy consumed by humans a year!) should be included in the system. You will always get the wrong answer if you ask the wrong question…
Somebody forgot the Sun. The solar activity is low now and will become even weaker the nearest years. Consequently the cosmic radiation increases and as a result of that the global cloud formation will increase. A cold sun and more clouds makes more shade and a dampening effect on global temperatures. The future years are more likely colder than warmer on this planet, and there is nothing we can do about it… just adapt…