Prof Dame Julia Slingo DBE, Met Office Chief Scientist, gave this Cabot Institute lecture with support by Bristol Festival of Ideas.  

 

This talk included an opportunity for questions from the audience at the end.  We also presented Julia with a special Cabot Institute Distinguished Fellowship in honour of her work in climate science.

The impact of human activity on our climate has become increasingly clear: with the IPCC stating that “Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal”. It has become clear that we are taking the planet into uncharted territory and changing the risk of extreme weather and climate events. Our exposure to these risks is also changing as a result of changes in how we live and a rapidly growing global population.

 

Climate science is now moving beyond questions of global average surface temperature change, and is now responding to questions about whether extreme weather such as heat waves, wet winters or flash flooding will become more or less frequent as the climate changes. This change in thinking requires the science to move on to more complex and high resolution simulations of what our climate is likely to be like across timescales from decades to centuries ahead.

 

This information allows society to make informed decisions about climate change mitigation and adaptation, and will help communities to prepare for weather and climate extremes across timescales.

 

 

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