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Abstract
Climate projections are about what typical climate will be, not what each individual season will be. This study considers natural variability combined with projections to allow comparison with seasonal weather and inform adaptation. Our understanding of mankind’s influence on the climate is largely based on computer simulations1,2. Model output is typically averaged over several decades3 so that the anthropogenic climate change signal stands out from the largely unpredictable ‘noise’ of climate variability. Similar averaging periods (30-year) are used for regional climate projections4,5,6 to inform adaptation. According to two such projections, UKCIP02 (ref. 4) and UKCP09 (ref. 6), the UK will experience ‘hotter drier summers and warmer wetter winters’7,8 in the future. This message is about a typical rather than any individual future season, and these projections should not be compared directly to observed weather as this neglects the sizeable contribution from year-to-year climate variability. Therefore, despite the apparent contradiction with the messages, it is a fallacy to suggest the recent cold UK winters like 2009/2010 disprove human-made climate change9. Nevertheless, such claims understandably cause public confusion and doubt10. Here we include year-to-year variability to provide projections for individual seasons. This approach has two advantages. First, it allows fair comparisons with recent weather events, for instance showing that recent cold winters are within projected ranges. Second, it allows the projections to be expressed in terms of the extreme hot, cold, wet or dry seasons that impact society, providing a better idea of adaptation needs.Cite this article
Sexton, D., Harris, G. The importance of including variability in climate change projections used for adaptation. Nature Clim Change 5, 931–936 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2705 