astronomy

Tom Wigley

Tom Wigley is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tom Wigley rather than just read about it. In short: Tom Michael Lampe Wigley is a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide. He is also affiliated with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR, Boulder, CO).

Key takeaways

Tom Wigley belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tom Wigley to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tom Wigley from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tom Michael Lampe Wigley is a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide. He is also affiliated with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR, Boulder, CO). He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his major contributions to climate and carbon cycle modeling and to climate data analysis, and because he is "one of the world's foremost experts on climate change and one of the most highly cited scientists in the discipline." He has contributed to many of the reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body that was recognized in 2007 by the joint award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Wigley was educated as a mathematical physicist and earned his doctorate (1968) at the University of Adelaide in Australia. In between his undergraduate and graduate degrees he trained as a meteorologist with the (Australian) Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology. After his Ph.D., he taught in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) for seven years. In 1975 he moved to England, where he served as the director of the Climatic Research Unit[5] at the University of East Anglia from 1978 to 1993. In 1993 he moved to the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where he was appointed a senior scientist in 1994. He subsequently moved back to the University of Adelaide where he held an ARC DORA Professorial Fellowship (2012 to 2016). He currently (2023) holds an Adjunct Professorial position at that institution. His published papers include the first paper to demonstrate 20th century warming using both land and marine data[7], the first paper to include the emissions-based effects of aerosol cooling on projections of future climate change[8], the first paper to provide realistic scenarios for the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentration[9], the first paper to use pattern-based methods to identify a statistically-significant human influence on the climate[10], the first paper to give probabilistic projections for future changes in global-mean temperature[11], and one of the first papers to use statistical downscaling to derive high-resolution climate information from coarse-resolution gridded climate model output[12]. With colleagues Sarah Raper and Malte Meinshausen he developed the widely-used MAGICC coupled gas-cycle/climate model[13]. Wigley has also published a number of papers in aqueous carbonate geochemistry, including a standard method for carbon dating of groundwater[14], and, with Niel Plummer, highly-cited papers on the dissolution kinetics of calcite[15] and mixing of carbonate waters[16]. Wigley has argued in publications and the popular media that the IPCC has been too optimistic about the prospect of averting harmful climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the use of renewable technologies alone[17], and argued that any realistic mitigation portfolio must include significant contributions from nuclear energy[18]. He has also pointed out that "the human-induced [climate] changes that are expected over the next 100 years are much greater than any changes that societies have experienced in the past." In 2015, with other leading experts, he was co-author of an open letter to policy makers, which stated that "continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change."[19,20]

Articles Charlson, Robert J.; Tom M. L. Wigley (February 1994). "Sulfate Aerosol and Climatic Change". Scientific American. 270 (2): 28–35. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0294-48. Wigley, Tom M.L.; L.N. Plummer; F.J. Pearson (1978). "Mass transfer and carbon isotope evolution in natural water systems". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 42 (8): 1117–1139. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(78)90108-4. Wigley, Tom M.L.; K.R. Briffa; P.D. Jones (1984). "On the average value of correlated time series, with applications in dendroclimatology and hydrometeorology". Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology. 23 (2): 201–213. doi:10.1175/1520-0450(1984)023<0201:otavoc>2.0.co;2. Jones, P.D.; Tom M.L. Wigley; P.B. Wright (1986). "Global temperature variations between 1861 and 1984". Nature. 322 (6078): 430–434. doi:10.1038/322430a0. S2CID 4245929. Wigley, Tom M.L.; S.C.B. Raper (1992). "Implications for climate and sea level of revised IPCC emissions scenarios". Nature. 357 (6376): 293–300. doi:10.1038/357293a0. S2CID 4347865. Wigley, Tom M.L.; R. Richels; J.A. Edmonds (1996). "Economic and environmental choices in the stabilization of atmospheric CO2". Nature. 379 (6562): 240–243. doi:10.1038/379240a0. S2CID 25702535. Santer, B.D.; K.E. Taylor; Tom M.L. Wigley; T.C. Johns; P.D. Jones; D.J. Karoly; J.F.B. Mitchell; A.H. Oort; J.E. Penner; V. Ramaswamy; M.D. Schwarzkopf; R.J. Stouffer; S. Tett (1996). "A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere". Nature. 382 (6586): 39–46. doi:10.1038/382039a0. Heard, B P; B W Brook; T M L Wigley; C J A Bradshaw (2017). "Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems". Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 76: 1122–1133. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.114.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tom Wigley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tom Wigley claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tom Wigley before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tom Wigley ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tom Wigley

In research: Tom Wigley appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tom Wigley in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tom Wigley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, Academic staff of the University of Adelaide, Academics of the University of East Anglia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tom Wigley outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tom Wigley in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tom Wigley means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tom Wigley out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tom Wigley in simple terms?

Tom Michael Lampe Wigley is a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide. He is also affiliated with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR, Boulder, CO).

Why does Tom Wigley matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tom Wigley?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tom Wigley.