Event information:
Event: WCRP OSC Climate Research in Service to Society (24-28 October 2011; Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, Denver, United States) (24-28 October 2011) |
Available documents from this event


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On the Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate
The long observational record is critical to our understanding of the Earth’s climate, but most observing systems were not developed with a climate objective in mind. As a result, tremendous efforts have gone into assessing and reprocessing the data records to improve their usefulness in climate studies. Many challenges remain, such as tracking the improvement of processing algorithms. Reanalyses have fostered significant research, yet reliable global trends in many physical fields are not yet attainable, despite significant advances in data assimilation and numerical modeling. Communication o ...
Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266170887_On_the_Reprocessing_and_Reana [...]
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; J. Kennedy ; D. Dee ; A. O'Neill
Published by: WMO ; 2011The long observational record is critical to our understanding of the Earth’s climate, but most observing systems were not developed with a climate objective in mind. As a result, tremendous efforts have gone into assessing and reprocessing the data records to improve their usefulness in climate studies. Many challenges remain, such as tracking the improvement of processing algorithms. Reanalyses have fostered significant research, yet reliable global trends in many physical fields are not yet attainable, despite significant advances in data assimilation and numerical modeling. Communication of the strengths, limitations and uncertainties of reprocessed observations and reanalysis data, not only among the community of developers, but also with the extended research community, including the new generations of researchers and the decision makers is crucial for further advancement of the observational data records. WCRP provides the means to bridge the different motivating objectives on which national efforts focus.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Standard Copyright)Tags: Observations ; Climate monitoring
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Challenges in Estimating and Understanding Recent Changes in the Frequency and Intensity of Extreme Climate and Weather Events
This paper briefly reviews some aspects of the current status of research on changes in climate extremes, identifying gaps and issues that warrant additional work. This paper focuses primarily on the historical instrumental record, giving a sense of the nature of the results that have been obtained, challenges that arise from observational, methodological and climate modelling uncertainties and discussing the extent to which detection and attribution research has been able to link observed changes to external forcing of the climate system. It also very briefly discusses projections for the 21s ...
Challenges in Estimating and Understanding Recent Changes in the Frequency and Intensity of Extreme Climate and Weather Events
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World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; L.V. Alexander ; Gabriele C. Hegerl ; T.R. Knutson ; P. Naveau ; N. Nicholls ; C. Schar ; S.I. Seneviratne ; X. Zhang
Published by: WMO ; 2011This paper briefly reviews some aspects of the current status of research on changes in climate extremes, identifying gaps and issues that warrant additional work. This paper focuses primarily on the historical instrumental record, giving a sense of the nature of the results that have been obtained, challenges that arise from observational, methodological and climate modelling uncertainties and discussing the extent to which detection and attribution research has been able to link observed changes to external forcing of the climate system. It also very briefly discusses projections for the 21st century. Extremes are not discussed on paleo time scales, in the context of the present (i.e., short term forecasting), or in the context of climate surprises (extreme tipping points). These choices reflect our desire not to attempt too broad a review of the topic due to space constraints of this short paper, as well as a view that very high priority should be given to reducing uncertainty in our understanding of historical changes in extremes over the instrumental period as a prerequisite to confidently predicting changes over the next century. This includes the development of improved and comprehensive observational records, improvement in our ability to confidently detect changes in observations through the development of better physical models, forcing data sets and more power statistical techniques, the development and refinement of our understanding of the physical processes that produce extremes, and continued improvement in our ability to attribute causes to those changes. This does not imply that research on extremes on paleo timescales or on the projection of future changes in extremes is of lesser importance, but rather that overall progress on understanding implications of ongoing and future changes in extremes will be strongly dependent upon our ability to document and understand changes in extremes during the period of history that has been (and continues to be) most comprehensively and directly observed.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Climate prediction ; Climate projection ; Extreme weather event
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Prediction from Weeks to Decades
This white paper is a synthesis of several recent workshops, reports and published literature: (Smith et al., 2011; Anderson et al. 2011; Weller et al. 2010; Meehl et al. 2009; Hurrell et al. 2009; Shukla et al. 2010 and Brunet et al. 2010). The intent is to document: (i) the scientific basis for prediction from weeks to decades; (ii) current capabilities; and (iii) outstanding challenges. We focus on time--‐scales from beyond the time scale of deterministic weather (i.e., sub--‐seasonal) to decadal.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; David Anderson ; Gilbert Brunet ; In-Sik Kang ; Adam Scaife ; Doug Smith
Published by: WMO ; 2011This white paper is a synthesis of several recent workshops, reports and published literature: (Smith et al., 2011; Anderson et al. 2011; Weller et al. 2010; Meehl et al. 2009; Hurrell et al. 2009; Shukla et al. 2010 and Brunet et al. 2010). The intent is to document: (i) the scientific basis for prediction from weeks to decades; (ii) current capabilities; and (iii) outstanding challenges. We focus on time--‐scales from beyond the time scale of deterministic weather (i.e., sub--‐seasonal) to decadal.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Standard Copyright)Tags: Observations ; Weather ; Weather forecasting ; Research
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Carbon Dioxide and Climate : perspectives on a Scientific Assessment
Many of the findings of the Charney Report on CO2 induced climate change (1979) are still valid, despite 30 additional years of climate research and observations. This paper considers the reasons why the report was so prescient, and assesses the progress achieved since its publication. We suggest that emphasis on the importance of physical understanding gained through the use of theory and simple models, both in isolation and as an aid in the interpretation of the results of General Circulation Models, provided much of the authors’ insight at the time. Increased emphasis on these aspects of re ...
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; Bjorn Stevens ; Isaac Held ; John Mitchell ; Jean-Louis Dufresne ; Kerry Emanuel ; Pierre Friedlingstein ; Stephen Griffies ; Catherine Senior
Published by: WMO ; 2011Many of the findings of the Charney Report on CO2 induced climate change (1979) are still valid, despite 30 additional years of climate research and observations. This paper considers the reasons why the report was so prescient, and assesses the progress achieved since its publication. We suggest that emphasis on the importance of physical understanding gained through the use of theory and simple models, both in isolation and as an aid in the interpretation of the results of General Circulation Models, provided much of the authors’ insight at the time. Increased emphasis on these aspects of research is likely to continue to be productive in the future, and even to constitute one of the most efficient routes towards improved climate change assessments.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Carbon dioxide (CO2) ; Atmospheric circulation ; General circulation model [of the atmosphere] (GCM)
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Atmospheric Composition Irreversible Climate Change and Mitigation Policy
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; Pierrehumbert Raymond T.; Matthews D.L.; et al. - WMO, 2011The Earth’s atmosphere is changing due to anthropogenic increases of a range of gases and aerosols that influence the planetary energy budget. Policy has long been challenged to ensure that instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol or carbon trading deal with the wide range of lifetimes of these radiative forcing agents. Recent research has sharpened scientific understanding of the differences between various metrics used to compare emissions of different gases; as a result, there has been an improved understanding of how climate system time scales interact with the time scales of the forcing age ...
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; Raymond T. Pierrehumbert ; D.L. Matthews ; John S. Daniel
Published by: WMO ; 2011The Earth’s atmosphere is changing due to anthropogenic increases of a range of gases and aerosols that influence the planetary energy budget. Policy has long been challenged to ensure that instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol or carbon trading deal with the wide range of lifetimes of these radiative forcing agents. Recent research has sharpened scientific understanding of the differences between various metrics used to compare emissions of different gases; as a result, there has been an improved understanding of how climate system time scales interact with the time scales of the forcing agents themselves. This has led to consideration of new metrics such as cumulative carbon, and recognition that short-lived forcing agents can ‘trim the peak’ of coming climate change, while long-lived agents, especially carbon dioxide, will be responsible for at least a millennium of elevated temperatures and altered climate, even if emissions were to cease. We suggest that these vastly differing characteristics imply that a single basket for trading among forcing agents is incompatible with current scientific understanding.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Climate change ; Greenhouse gas (GHG) ; Carbon dioxide (CO2) ; Climate change - Mitigation ; Climate policies
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Building Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in less Developed Countries
Around the world, the devastation of climate--‐related impacts has undermined livelihoods, threatened ecosystems, and stretched the capacity of sociopolitical institutions. Droughts, storms, and floods have often caused serious agricultural losses and human suffering: images of famines in Africa, human displacement in the Caribbean, and water--‐covered settlements in Bangladesh illustrate just some of the disastrous impacts of climate on vulnerable populations. In recent years, the possibility of more frequent and extreme events as a result of climate change has fueled new avenues of inquiry t ...
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Challenges of a Sustained Climate Observing System
Observations of planet Earth and especially all climate system components and forcings are increasingly needed for planning and decision making related to climate services in the broadest sense. Although significant progress has been made, much more remains to be done before a fully functional climate observing system exists. Observations are needed on all spatial scales from local to global, and all time scales, especially to understand and document changes in extremes. Climate change from human activities adds both a new dimension and an imperative: to acquire climate observations of suffici ...
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Attribution of Weather and Climate-Related Extreme Events
Unusual or extreme weather and climate-related events are of great public concern and interest, yet there are often conflicting messages from scientists about whether such events can be linked to climate change. There is clear evidence that climate has changed as a result of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, and that across the globe some aspects of extremes have changed as a result. But this does not imply that the probability of occurrence (or, given a fixed damage, risk) of a specific type of recently observed weather or climate event has changed significantly as a result of human in ...
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