National Predictions - David Woolf, National Oceanographic Centre

1. Climate Change:
A National and Marine
Perspective
David Woolf
National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

2. Outline
• Global/Regional Warming and Sea Level Rise
– Temperature Change
– Sea level Change
• Changes in Weather Patterns
– Changes in Occurrence
– Changes in Wave Heights
• THC Collapse
– Ocean Circulation
– Temperature Change
– Sea Level Change
• Summary

4. Global Sea Level Rise

5. Changes in
Weather
Patterns

6. Our Variable Winters: The NAO
• Strong influence on European Climate
• Not necessarily connected with Global Change
• Definite influence on many surface parameters

7. Variability in Wintertime Wave Climate
• Variations in wave
height coherent over
large distances in
response to major
modes of atmospheric
variability
• North Atlantic
Oscillation, NAO
• East Atlantic Pattern,
EAP
NAO
EAP

8. Variability in Weather Patterns
• Future Climate
Changes can be
expressed as changes
in main patterns, e.g.
• North Atlantic
Oscillation, NAO
• East Atlantic Pattern,
EAP
• NAO predicted to go
positive

9. THC
Collapse?

10. Slowing of Atlantic conveyor:
~30%
0
5
10
15
20
25
Volume
transport
(Million cubic
metres per
second)
1957 1981 1992 1998 2004
Year
~30%
After Bryden et al (Nature, 2005)

11. Combined effect of Greenhouse
Gases and THC Collapse

12. Sea Level Rise with THC Collapse

13. Summary
• Global Warming is Real
• But the detail is uncertain. Expect the
Unexpected
• Probable outcomes include sea level
rise and an increase in storminess.
Thus affecting
Coastal Defences
Offshore Engineering
Renewable Energy