The probability of rapid climate change

Western Europe’s climate is warmer than would be expected because of heat transported by the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean. Model simulations and paleoclimate data show that it is possible for this circulation to shut down leading to rapid cooling in European climate. We investigate the probability of this occurring using the intermediate complexity climate model, C-GOLDSTEIN, under various CO2 emissions scenarios. We use modern Bayesian statistical methods to speed up the computation of Monte Carlo simulations allowing us to investigate not only the probabilities, but also sensitivity to our initial conditions.