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Abstract:
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Natural variability in all aspects of the Earth system - including the climate system and ecosystems - presents a formidable challenge to the detection and quantification of change forced by industrial activities. Statistically robust quantification of change informs our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of change and helps to improve predictions into the future, while error in detection can disrupt our concerted efforts to respond to climate and environmental change. Climate time-series exhibit mixed signals such as trends and shifts superposed to patterns arising from the memory of the climate system. Robust estimation of the rate of change needs to objectively detect the timing of changes in the trend as well as their magnitude, and to distinguish these forced signals from memory, i.e. red noise. In this talk, I describe a new approach to separate unsteady long-term change from red noise, which clarifies a key point in the scientific debate related to the recent "hiatus" in warming.
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