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Climate change

The question of significance

Nature volume 397, pages 657–658 (1999)Cite this article

The authors have combined results from simulations of changing climate and its environmental effects to look at Europe in the year 2050. They ask whether the impacts of human-induced climate change, through greenhouse gas emissions, can be distinguished from those due to natural climate variability. The two indicators they use are river flow and wheat yield. Both are affected by temperature and rainfall.

Climate change modelling has come a long way since the early days. In the 1970s, most climate change scenarios and impact analyses were based on estimated global average warmings and patterns derived from palaeoclimatic and other analogues3. Then came studies based on atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) of coarse horizontal resolution, bounded at the surface by a simple ‘slab-layer’ ocean. These were run for changed atmospheric composition, usually for equilibrium doubled CO2 concentrations. Changes at times earlier than that of doubled CO2 were obtained by linear scaling. Due to computing limitations, the equilibrated control (present climate) and doubled CO2 climate simulations were usually run only over a period of one or two decades4.

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Figure 1: Harvesting wheat in Denmark.

JORGEN SCHYTTE/STILL PICTURES

References

  1. Pittock, A. B. in Modelling Change in Environmental Systems (eds Jakeman, A. J., Beck, M. B. & McAleer, M. J.) Ch. 20 (Wiley, Chichester, 1993).

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  1. CSIRO Atmospheric Research , PMB 1, 3195, Aspendale, Australia

    A. Barrie Pittock

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  1. A. Barrie Pittock
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Pittock, A. The question of significance. Nature 397, 657–658 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/17704

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