Press Releases

Scientists from the University of Reading make major contribution to World Climate Modelling Summit

Release Date : 06 May 2008

Experts from the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at the University of Reading are taking a leading role in a major international science summit which aims to revolutionise the way we predict climate change.

Professor Julia Slingo, Founding Director of the Walker Institute at the University of Reading, will be arguing that the accurate climate change predictions required by society, from governments to insurance companies, cannot be supplied by the current generation of climate models or by the computing power currently available. She will be calling for international co-operation to build a new generation of much higher resolution climate models and the supercomputers needed to run them.

"The summit is set to layout a roadmap to deliver more reliable predictions of climate change, especially at the regional and local level. We are seeing major advances in climate modelling and in the development of the supercomputing power we need. If the international modeling community works together, there is no doubt that we can achieve significant improvements in our ability to predict climate" says Prof Slingo.

The reality of climate change has been accepted. Governments are now basing their strategies for reducing emissions and adapting to climate change on predictions of the levels of risk provided by the scientific community.

But how reliable are these predictions? As reflected in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, there continues to be considerable uncertainty in predictions of the magnitude of global warming. Moreover, uncertainties in regional climate change, (e.g., of changes in the severity of floods, droughts and storms) are even bigger.

The World Modelling Summit for Climate Prediction being held in Reading, UK 6-9 May will develop an international strategy to significantly improve predictions of climate change. Scientists consider such a revolution necessary and possible because of major advances in scientific understanding and the ever increasing power of computers.

For more information about the Summit please visit http://wcrp.ipsl.jussieu.fr/Workshops/ModellingSummit/index.html

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For more information please contact Kathy Maskell, Walker Institute Communications Manager on 0118 378 7380 or Alex Brannen on 0118 378 7388