Professor Myles Allen: Climate Change - So Last Decade
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Transcript of Professor Myles Allen: Climate Change - So Last Decade
University of Oxford
Climate change – so last decade
Myles Allen
School of Geography and the Environment
University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The impact of “climategate” on the observed surface temperature record
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/jan_2010_update.html
Before correctionAfter correction
University of Oxford
Global warming is predictable – and predicted
University of Oxford
But who cares about global temperatures when this kind of thing is happening?
The 2010 Russian heatwave
University of Oxford
Lots of people are concerned about extreme weather events
"They used to say we're changing the odds, we're loading the dice that make it more likely that we'll get extreme weather events. Now the change is we're not only loading the dice, we're painting more dots on the dice. We're not only rolling more 12s, we're rolling 13s and 14s and soon 15s and 16s.”
- (Al Gore, September 2011) Q1: “Could this event have occurred in the absence
of human influence on climate?” Q2: “How much has human influence on climate
increased the odds of an event of this magnitude?”
University of Oxford
Loading the weather dice towards more heatwaves in Russia
4x increase in risk
1 1/10 1/100 1/1000Odds of monthly temperatures exceeding this
threshold in any year
University of Oxford
How do we keep the public’s attention?Should we be even be trying?
Climate science is becoming increasingly specific and technical: answers to the big questions– Is the climate changing?– Why is the climate changing?– What needs to be done to stop climate change?
are not evolving: not much new here. Climate infotainment is dead. Professional climate communicators and climate
campaigners are dying out. Climate change has become boring. This may turn out to be a good thing.