Events and seminars

Event:	Global Change Seminar
Date:	12:30, Tue 24 Apr, 2012
Speaker:	Irina Mahlstein
Title:	How much global mean temperature increase can we afford?
Venue:	Room 304, Crew Building
Host:	Gabi Hegerl
Abstract:	Anthropogenic greenhouse gases cause the Earth's climate to change. On a global scale these changes are already detectable. However, on a local scale, where climate variability is large, changes are more difficult to detect. But people desire to know when the changes of the climate become perceptible to them. Based on climate model output and regional analysis we determine how much more global temperature increase we can afford before changes in temperature and precipitation become significantly different to the climate that has been experienced in the past. Yet, not all models predict the same temperature increase. To deal with this uncertainty, we use different approaches depending on the question asked. In some rare cases, as for example Arctic sea ice, the linear dependency on global temperature allows to recalibrate the models and predict by what global temperature increase the September Arctic sea ice will be melted.

This article was published on Aug 16, 2010