Climate modeling talk next week by Dr Kevin Trenberth
Tim Bishop
Dr Kevin Trenberth, Head of the Climate Analysis Section, National
Centre for Atmospheric Research, USA.
“The Flow of Energy through the Earth’s Climate System: Observations
and model performance in the Southern Hemisphere”
A description will be given of the flow of energy through the climate
system and the role of the climate system components of atmosphere,
ocean, land, and ice, and how these are changing as the climate
changes. The main thrust of this talk will be on how global warming is
manifested in terms of energy flows and how well models perform. An
examination will be given of the model performances in simulating the
flow of energy in the past and their projections for the 21st century.
Atmospheric reanalyses at high resolution reveal biases in energy
flows especially over the southern hemisphere associated with clouds.
Global climate models exhibit similar biases. Clouds are projected to
increase in models over the southern oceans where they already occur
with 90% frequency (but not in models), raising questions about
whether this is really possible. The biases in models over the
Southern Hemisphere are strongly related to their climate sensitivity,
highlighting the need for improvements.
Monday 31 August 2009
4.00 pm
Archway 1 Lecture Theatre
All interested are welcome to attend
Short biography:
Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is Head of the Climate Analysis Section at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in the USA. Originally from
New Zealand, he obtained his Sc. D.
in meteorology in 1972 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He
was a lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) Scientific Assessment of Climate Change. He
has published over 400 scientific articles or papers, including 40
books or book chapters, and over 175 refereed journal articles. He is
listed among the top 20 authors in highest citations in all of
geophysics.