Climate prediction: what is it and what is achievable?
What do we mean by climate prediction? If we had a perfect model of the real-world, physical climate system, how would we use it to make predictions of future climate under assumptions about future human behaviour (most notably, future greenhouse gas emissions)? I will discuss this question and illustrate the issues using a deterministic, low-dimensional, nonlinear dynamical system which parallels the high-dimensional Earth System Models used in climate science, climate impacts studies and climate policy.

Having discussed the essence of climate prediction, I will go on to reflect on the relationship between our non-perfect climate models and the real-world climate system, arguing that this relationship fundamentally changes the nature of what we can expect to learn from models about future climate in reality. In conclusion, I will argue for a radically new focus for climate models and climate model experiments; one which, given the threat that climate change represents for our societies and cultures, should be somewhat driven by the information needs of business, politics, finance and economics.
Date: 31 January 2025, 11:00
Venue: Bill Roscoe Lecture Theatre, Wolfson Building, Department of Computer Science
Speaker: Professor David Stainforth (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Organising department: Department of Statistics
Organiser: Professor Jotun Hein (Department of Statistics, University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: events@stats.ox.ac.uk
Host: Professor Jotun Hein (Department of Statistics, University of Oxford)
Booking required?: Not required
Booking email: events@stats.ox.ac.uk
Cost: No charge
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Beverley Lane