One of the main authors of the recently released IPCC report, that stated that humans are 90% likely to have caused global warming was interviewed by MIT’s Technology Review. He discussed in the interview the methods and modelling techniques that they used in order to come up with the conclusion that humans are the main contributors to Climate Change.
Two exercises were required of the scientists, one was to simulate the current climate with the human influences added (greenhouse gases) then run their models to get the global average temperature. The other exercise was to take the greenhouse gases for the year 1900 keep them constant for 100 years then run their models. The results were that global averages were the same till 1960 then they started to veer off from one another.
On the accuracy of their methods he said:
In the last six years, these climate models have gained in realism; they have improved in their physics, chemistry, and biology. They’ve improved their spatial resolution because computers have gotten faster. There’s better confidence that these models are looking a bit more like the planet we live on. But they’re never going to be to the point of simulating every leaf, and so on.
Professor Prin is a professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. Interview transcript can be found here.
Category: Global Warming
