Tim Palmer

Nov 6, 2024 | wmo.int | Tim Palmer

By Tim Palmer, Department of Physics, University of OxfordEnsemble prediction is a vital part of modern operational weather and climate prediction, allowing users to estimate quantitatively the degree of confidence they can have in a particular forecast outcome. This, of course, is vital in helping such users make decisions about different weather-dependent scenarios. The development of such ensemble systems for both weather and climate prediction has played a large part in my own research career.

Sep 29, 2024 | muyinteresante.com | Tim Palmer

Durante siglos, la humanidad ha contemplado el movimiento de los planetas con asombro, creyendo que estos cuerpos celestes se movían con una precisión casi perfecta. El sol sale cada día, las estrellas aparecen en el mismo lugar del cielo, y las mareas suben y bajan como un reloj. Sin embargo, la realidad es mucho más intrigante y, en muchos aspectos, caótica.

May 30, 2024 | nature.com | Nicholas Leach |Christopher Roberts |Dann Mitchell |Vikki Thompson |Tim Palmer |Antje Weisheimer

AbstractThe 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave was so extreme as to challenge conventional statistical and climate-model-based approaches to extreme weather attribution. However, state-of-the-art operational weather prediction systems are demonstrably able to simulate the detailed physics of the heatwave. Here, we leverage these systems to show that human influence on the climate made this event at least 8 [2–50] times more likely.

Apr 22, 2024 | physicsworld.com | Tim Palmer

Tim Palmer says that we must pool our resources to produce high-resolution climate models that societies can use, before it is too late It was a scorcher last year. Land and sea temperatures were up to 0.2 °C higher every single month in the second half of 2023, with these warm anomalies continuing into 2024. We know the world is warming, but the sudden heat spike had not been predicted. As NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt wrote in Nature recently: “It’s humbling and a bit worrying to...

Feb 3, 2023 | bbc.com | Tim Palmer

Our lives tend to run smoothly and predictably most of the time, but they are also prone to intermittent instability with devastating consequences. Can we do more to predict these periods and even intervene to prevent them? For many of us, life seems to progress smoothly and predictably for much of the time. Indeed, it seems one of our biggest concerns appears to be getting stuck in a rut. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, our world is turned upside down.