The UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has awarded £580,000 (US$737,000) to a research project that will explore what extreme weather would look like in a net-zero world.
The project, led by Andrea Dittus, senior research scientist at the University of Reading’s department of meteorology and National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), will explore how the climate could change in a future where greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced to net zero and global temperatures have stabilized compared to the current rapid warming trends.
Studying net zero climates is a relatively recent focus of research that comes off the back of commitments world leaders made to limit global warming to below 2°C – and 1.5 °C if possible – following the 2015 Paris Agreement. This ambition can only be achieved by reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) to net zero.
Dittus said, “We have all seen the record temperatures and wildfires dominate Europe in the past few weeks. Climate change is playing a major part in this. We need to better understand how climate and climate extremes would evolve in a world where temperatures have stabilized at the global scale.
“There is growing evidence that the climate’s behavior could vary significantly between a rapidly warming world and a stabilizing one, even if they have similar temperature levels.
“By analyzing these changes, we can learn how our climate may evolve in a more sustainable future.”
Volcanic eruptions
The study is one of a dozen Independent Research Fellowships funded by NERC that will allow the most promising early-career scientists to carry out their cutting-edge research projects. The scheme is designed to develop scientific leadership among the Fellowship recipients, who will receive five years of support as a result of the award.
Dittus’s project will involve using climate model simulations to develop scenarios highlighting the climate impacts different regions might experience in a net-zero world.
One scenario Dittus will look at is the possibility that a series of volcanic eruptions will occur in a stabilizing global climate. Large successive eruptions occurred in the 19th century and could occur again – but this possibility is not something routinely included in climate projections. Multiple successive large volcanic eruptions could have important effects on temperature and rainfall patterns across the globe.
Dittus will commence her research in January 2024.