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PolicyNet Question TimeContinuing the run of excellent high profile speakers at PolicyNet events, Professor Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to HM Government, talked to PolicyNet Members about the science of climate change.

Sir David began with a brief history lesson, detailing some of the earliest discoveries about the Earth’s energy budget and the effects of greenhouse gasses back in the 1860s. Even in 1896 questions were being asked about the possibility of global warming due to the rising levels of CO2 emissions from the industrial revolution. Although scientists were on the right track a century or so ago, there was still a paucity of data back then; a situation that has now been addressed with climate record going back 750,000 years thanks to ice cores from Antarctica, the longest of which is 3 kilometres long.

This, along with more recent and accurate data going back to the 1950s from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, has allowed the development of more accurate models of potential climate change. Sir David shared some of the latest results from the Hadley Centre Climate Model showing the potential melting of the Greenland Ice Cap over the next 3000 years if CO2 levels quadrupled. While the melting was shown to be slow, due to the high thermal mass, the volume of water involved represented a 6.5m rise in average sea levels. Also, results from the Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Study showed that flood risks over the UK would increase in the period to 2080 in all scenarios.

While it is recognised that the Earth’s climate has significant inertia and that even if CO2 levels were reduced to pre-industrial levels today, a certain about of climate change is still inevitable, Sir David made the case that action must still be taken urgently to ameliorate future climate change. To this end, Sir David laid out the current actions that are being taken to address climate change including the Kyoto Protocol, European emissions trading scheme, improving energy efficiency, renewable, adaptation strategies and transfer of technologies to the developing world. Sir David also stressed that climate change was a key priority for the UK’s G8 and EU presidencies in 2005.

 

Updated July 2012

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