Key results from climate-change experiments conducted using Met Office Hadley Centre computer models of the climate system. The experiments assume that future emissions of greenhouse gases will follow the IS92a scenario, in which the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide more than doubles over the course of the 21st century. This is a 'business as usual' scenario, which assumes mid-range economic growth but no measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

It is important to be aware that predictions from climate models are always subject to uncertainty because of limitations on our knowledge of how the climate system works and on the computing resources available. Different climate models can give different predictions.

Climate change results from the Met Office Hadley Centre

The globes below show latest results from the Met Office's climate change research. The data are based on a mid-range IPCC emissions scenario A1B.

Surface temperature animation (Flash, 2.7 Mb)         Sea-ice animation (Flash, 1.2 Mb)

 

Climate change and the greenhouse effect - a briefing from the Met Office Hadley Centre

This Met Office Hadley Centre briefing (published December 2005) is a collection of 60 slides with notes, containing up-to-date knowledge of the state of the climate and projections for the future.

Download Climate change and the greenhouse effect (PDF, 3.8 Mb)

 

A range of results from various Met Office Hadley Centre climate experiments are shown on the website of the Climate Impacts LINK project at the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia. The LINK project is the main source for supply of Met Office Hadley Centre model data for use in research projects. A more limited range of data is available from the web site of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Data Distribution Centre (IPCC DDC).

Some of the diagrams below are maps of differences between the current climate, conventionally defined as 1960-1990, and the climate of the end of the 21st century, taken to be 2070-2100. For most quantities, changes are shown both for the annual average and for each of the four seasons December-January (DJF), March-May (MAM), June-August (JJA) and September-November (SON). The other diagrams are time-series, showing changes which occur as time passes.

The diagrams are provided in PostScript (PS) and GIF formats. The data used to make each diagram are also available in network common data form language (CDL). This is a plain-text equivalent of network common data form (netCDF), which is a machine-independent file format developed by and available from Unidata. We use the GDT netCDF convention.

		HadCM2	HadCM3
Surface air temperature: Change in the average temperature of air 1.5 metres above the ground (a typical height for standard meteorological measurements), in degrees Celsius	Time-series	PS GIF Global-CDL NH-CDL SH-CDL	PS GIF Global-CDL NH-CDL SH-CDL
	Annual map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	DJF map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	MAM map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	JJA map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	SON map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
Precipitation: Change in the total of rainfall and snowfall, in millimetres per day (liquid water equivalent for snowfall)	Annual map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	DJF map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	MAM map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	JJA map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	SON map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
Soil moisture content: Change in the amount of water in the soil which is available to plants, in millimetres	Annual map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	DJF map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	MAM map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	JJA map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
	SON map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
Sea-level change: Change in mean sea level from ocean thermal expansion and melting of glaciers, in metres	Time-series	PS GIF total-CDL exp-CDL gl-CDL	PS GIF total-CDL exp-CDL gl-CDL
	Annual map	PS GIF CDL	PS GIF CDL
Sea-ice area: Percentage change	Time-series	PS GIF NH-CDL SH-CDL	PS GIF NH-CDL SH-CDL
Sea-ice volume: Percentage change	Time-series	PS GIF NH-CDL SH-CDL	PS GIF NH-CDL SH-CDL