The outlook for the rest of the century: 40C summer days
Official report predicts impact of climate change on British weather
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Frightening temperature increases which would make life difficult if not intolerable are forecast for Britain during the course of the coming century, according to the latest detailed Government predictions of how climate change may affect the United Kingdom.
London's hottest summer day, which in recent decades has averaged 30.7 degrees Celsius, or 91.6 Fahrenheit, could increase by 10 degrees C to 40.7C or 105.3F, a staggering rise – which would make travel on the London Underground, for example, where the increase would be further magnified, virtually unendurable – with a high probability of increased deaths from heat stress among the old and infirm.
Similar huge increases are forecast for every region of Britain in the first localised forecasts of the potential impacts of global warming. Also for the first time, detailed projections of drought, increased winter rainstorms and sea level rise are made for each area, showing for instance that Southwold, a Suffolk coastal resort already threatened with erosion, faces a sea level rise of 37cm, or 14in, by the 2080s, while London itself could face a similar rise, with the threat of an additional 97cm, or 3ft, of storm surge.
The long-awaited predictions, which update forecasts last made in 2002, were based on extensive computer modelling by the Met Office's Hadley Centre, and were unveiled by the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, who said they would "affect every aspect of our daily lives".
Despite a certain level of uncertainty in the models, Mr Benn said, it was clear that climate change was occurring, and he hit out at those denying it, following after sceptical questions in the House of Commons from two Tory MPs, Andrew Tyrie and Peter Lilley. "If there are those in society who still think this isn't happening and we don't need to worry, who think we can pull up the bedcovers and it'll all go away, they are profoundly mistaken," he said.
The predictions are based on different scenarios of the future emissions of the greenhouse gases which are causing the earth's atmosphere to warm, and thus highlight the worldwide need to cut emissions back substantially, which will be the focus of the world climate conference in Copenhagen in December.
At the moment the world is close to the medium emissions pathway, and this is likely to mean an average regional summer temperature rise by the 2080s of 4C, which could be 5C in the south-east.
Summer rainfall under this scenario is likely to drop by between 11 and 27 per cent, meaning drought, and winter rainfall is likely to increase by between 11 and 23 per cent, causing flooding.
However, the important thrust of the new projections for Britain is that we are now committed to quite a lot of climate change, no matter what we do, as the full effects of greenhouse gases take about 30 years to work through from the moment they are emitted and so there is climate change yet to come from carbon dioxide which is already up there.
So the new figures suggest it is virtually certain, whatever climate deal the world can put together, that by the 2040s, summers in southern England will be about 2.3C (more than 4F) hotter on average than they are now. This means that Britain's hottest summer in 2003 when the temperature exceeded 100F for the first time, will in 30 years' time be the norm – and by the 2080s it will seem like a cool summer.
The projections meant, said Mr Benn, "that we must plan to adapt to changes that are now unavoidable" – and they will be the starting point for a major Government effort at climate change adaptation, which will take in everything from flood defence and NHS heatwave planning to how to design roads and buildings and how to help wildlife cope with a changing world.
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Comments
A further issue I have is the poor reporting; for example, the supposed link between CO2 and GW; CO2 is always seen, on an in-depth study, to follow warming; as opposed to CH4 increases which precede it. CO2 will reinforce warming, but does not seem to be a cause; CH4, on the other hand, seems to be a trigger. Rather worryingly, in light of what is happening with hydrates in Siberia.
I'm not in the anti-CC camp at all - don't get me wrong; but fevered reporting like this, based on research which clearly fails to take into account recent observations, is not going to do any favours to the credibility of the argument.
We need more balance in the reporting, and a bit more scepticism; the arguments need to be presented more clearly and take into account external factors; otherwise the argument cannot be won
'At the moment the world is close to the medium emissions pathway'
The medium the emissions scenario is inconsstent with reality. With the oil supply having peaked, we will witness one of two conditions over the coming few years -either are rapid decline in emissions as industrialism collapses and populations die off, or a huge surge in emissions as people burn coal and trees in a last desperate attempt to maintain current high energy consumption levels and population overshoot for just a bit longer.
Anyway, the 'medium emissions pathway' is highly unlikely to prevail when so many positive freedback mechanisms have already been triggered.
I'd like to read the report this article is based on. It could be meatier. The article itself feels more like balderdash.
If global climate change results in a change to the the Gulf Stream mechanism so that it reduces or even diverts away from us, then the UK is is for a very noticeable cooling of climate.
The Gulf Stream is part of a global ocean water circulation system that is powered by and affected by temperature differences across the entire world and is barely understood even now. After over 50 years of scientific weather research and modeling, we still can't predict what the weather will be like next week with much certainty so how can we predict what will happen to local climate in 10 years time? What could happen to any particular country or local area is a massively complex puzzle that we can only throw a few guesses at.
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2. Show me proof that these 'models' with their 'parameters' are confirmed by real hard experimental proof.
3. Show me that the probabilities assigned to the scenarios can be quantified and tested.
Not one single penny more of public money should be squandered on this self-serving rubbish.
You are correct that some Scientists, Like Philip Stott (Emeritus Professor of Biogeography, London - not to be confused with the Stott who works at Hadley) think that the trend will be downwards for decades because of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation but this will, probably, only give us a breathing space to reduce fossil fuel usage before temps start to climb again. We will have to do this anyway, since fossil fuels are being depleted fairly rapidly.
The strange thing is that, when I have posted that we should increase R&D on Efficiency plus on Fusion and other Renewables to get up to industrial-scale whilst using Fission as a stopgap, I mainly receive abuse from the true believers in AGW (abuse level seems to be inversely correlated, in many cases, with Scientific/Engineering knowledge).
I would appreciate a link to the peer-reviewed papers saying that CO2 is not a climate driver as I have not come across these.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/070
I had to take large chunks of it on trust but, those parts that I could check against my old textbooks, seemed correct.
I am not familiar with the International Journal of Modern Physics but will try to look it up when I have more time. Next time someone who is involved in Climates Science posts on one of the sites that I read, I will post your link and ask for their comments! It could be a while though - when Dr Stott of The Hadley Centre sent a letter to The Indie a while back which seemed to contradict his published work, I posted links and asked him to comment but never received an answer (too busy, I suppose).
Thanks, once again for your time.
Veggie Benn's statement yesterday in Parliament was followed by the usual attempt by the Tories to out green Labour and the usual tut tutting by members on all sides until the very end of the questions. Then Andrew Tyrie asked Benn whether the climate models had predicted the levelling of global temperatures and minor fall this century, which of course they did not. Benn's response was blustering, arm waving and saying that the century was only nine years old and that sceptics were a vanishing small number. The last statement was a confounded lie and although the century might only be nine years old, global mean surface temperatures have not risen for eleven years and the entire AGW hypothesis was based on no more than twenty years of global warming data.
Peter Lilley, who I understand graduated as a scientist, then questioned the business of whether the feedback due to water vapour and clouds is positive or negative. Obviously one cannot expect Benn to know about the very dubious assumption made by the AGW theorists that the feedback is always positive, but it did at least lead him to say that he would ask his scientists about the matter. If the feedback is neutral or negative then heating due to carbon dioxide will be a mere one degree or less even if emissions double.
The US NOAA, a usually very AGW alarmist agency have admitted that global warming is on hold and may remain so for twenty years or more. Surely the real question should be what contingency plans does the government have if temperatures continue to fall for a long period as they have done many times in the past?
Remember that we a just a product (dare I say maybe not a particulary helpfull one) of our surroundings and that we will never be completely incontrol of our destiny upon this collected ball of ancient star dust.
;)
This is why I start to wonder why on earth I still read the Indi - your so hell bent on your own agenda, in this case, pushing climate change down our throats, you sensationalise everything to ridiculous levels.
We have *no* way of knowing what the temperature is going to be like in 2080, or even next year.
The sheer amount of variables in the climate makes any predictions meaningless.
Yes, if the climate models panned out *exactly* as scientists predict, we could indeed se a scenario like this, but we all know they won't.
This smacks of headline grabbing, like so many of your articles on climate - pluck the worst case scenario from an outcome and report it as fact.
As someone has pointed out, the temperature in Britain would struggle to keep that high because we'd get pounded by thunderstorms, bringing the temperature down again. Then there's the gulf stream impact on our climate.
Read and pse pass on. Maybe this will be the next headline after MJ passing.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026503_pande
I'm going back to the beach and read the Sunday times. I only hope the water is a tad bit warmer....I'm thinking of going for a swim (even though it's a sharkless (thanks China) infested, plastic bottled (thanks America), oil sanded (Thanks BP) stretch of primordial goo.)