WANT to know what the weather will be like in a particular British town in 2080?
That鈥檚 what the , with climate projections made for areas just 5 kilometres across. Trouble is, some climate scientists think such predictions are worthless or worse.
鈥淏y focusing on that sort of detail you detract from the solid science of climate change,鈥� says Leonard Smith, a mathematician at the University of Oxford. 鈥淎t the local scale we can be almost certain that there will be big surprises, way outside what they say we should expect.鈥�
Advertisement
鈥淲e can be almost certain there will be big surprises, way outside what they say we should expect鈥�
A key bone of contention is how the projections handle 鈥渂locking highs鈥�. These prevent the eastward spread of Atlantic weather to western Europe, leading to heatwaves and droughts in summer, and long cold spells in winter.
of the projections by outside researchers warns that flaws in the way the projections handle phenomena such as European blocking 鈥渃annot be compensated for by any statistical procedures, however complex鈥�.
