University of Oxford

Climate change – so last decade

Myles Allen

School of Geography and the Environment

University of Oxford

myles.allen@ouce.ox.ac.uk

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.