Predicting the Natural Future of Earth’s Climate

ongoing

The future of Earth’s climate is of international concern. Yet the models we depend on for predicting the future remain uncalibrated against a natural baseline because that baseline has yet to be defined. In this ambitious project, we will generate the first empirically based predictions of a future climate that will constrain and define the natural baseline. Combined with state-of-the-art climate model experiments, this will allow us to deliver the first quantitative assessment of the absolute impacts of human activity over the coming millennia. NatClim has 2 primary objectives: Objective A: develop empirically based predictions about the future natural evolution of climate beginning today and going forward until the projected next glacial transition (10-20kyr from now). Specifically, we will generate new proxy reconstructions of key climate parameters across selected intervals in the past. These will be augmented by improved age model development and used to generate calibrations for predicting future variations in (for example) deep ocean temperature, sea level and atmospheric CO2. Objective B: produce an ensemble of future climate projections using state-of-the-art global climate models, ranging from entirely natural (based on results from Objective A) to essentially manmade (based on IPCC emission scenarios). The difference between these extremes will provide the first 4-dimensional quantification of the absolute effects of human activity on future climate. These objectives will be achieved by a team of experts led by the Principal Investigator with support from a group of Early Career Researchers and PhD students, who will gain invaluable and multi-disciplinary experience across climate system research. Our results will provide a groundbreaking benchmark and foundation upon which the full socio-economic costs of manmade climate change can be calculated, and a basis for future global climate policy decision-making.