10-12 June - Henry Wynn and Peter Abell will attend the CELSIUS project kick off meeting in Goteborg.
17-18 June – Leonard Smith, David Stainforth, Erica Thompson and Ewelina Sienkiewicz will take part in a closed workshop at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency led by Professor Arthur Petersen; they will form part of a panel of earth science experts who will reflect on the way uncertainty is characterised in the “Final Government Distribution” of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) for the Working Group I contribution to the next IPCC assessment report.
17-20 June - Emma Suckling and Hailiang Du will speak at the 2013 SIAM Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences in Padova, Italy. Du’s talk is entitled ‘Pseudo-Orbit Data Assimilation for Atmospheric GCMs’ Emma’s talk is entitled ‘Pseudo-Orbit Gradient Descent for Lagrangian Data Assimilation’
17-21 June – Leonard Smith will give an invited talk at the workshop ‘Methods of Chaos Detection and Predictability: Theory and Applications (MCDPTA13)’ at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden. http://www.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de/~mcdpta13/
25-27 June – Leonard Smith will give a plenary talk at the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility conference ‘Climate Adaptation 2013: knowledge + partnerships’ in Sydney
1-4 July - Reason Machete will be giving a talk entitled 'Defective Probabilistic Forecasts: Comforting the perplexed' at the 26th European Conference on Operational Research: The Forecasting Stream, in Rome, Italy.
1-12 July - Roman Frigg will be teaching at the Vienna International Summer School: Climate Studies.
8-12 July – Leonard Smith will give an invited talk at the Davos Atmosphere and Cryosphere Assembly 2013 (DACA13) entitled ‘Dynamic Probabilities, Mature Probabilities, and the Links Between Data Assimilation and Ensemble Forecasting in Actual Decision Support’. Hailiang DU will also give a talk entitled ‘Pseudo-orbit Data Assimilation in DART’ http://www.daca13.ch/index_EN.
6-11 October – Leonard Smith will give an invited talk at the workshop ‘The role of oceans in climate uncertainty’ at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS), http://www.birs.ca/events/2013/5-day-workshops/13w5104
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D. J. Baker (October 2012) co-authored the report: "Climate Extremes: Recent Trends with Implications for National Security" for
which Leonard Smith served as a lead reviewer. This report has been issued as a Harvard University Center for the Environment Report, and is available at http://environment.harvard.edu/climate-extremes
D. J. Baker (15 February 2013) 'Climate Change as an Intergenerational Problem' Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1302536110
S. C. Chapman, D. A. Stainforth, and N. W. Watkins (2013), ‘On Estimating Local Long Term Climate Trends’ Philos. Trans. R. Soc.
A-Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. (Abstract), the paper was the "cover story" of this edition. The paper was also picked up and covered by the web site “Simple Climate”
S. Surminski collaborated with UNISDR on the report ‘Catastrophe insurance in China’ in ‘Insurers' contributions to disaster reduction
– a series of case studies’, UNISDR
S. Surminski (1 March 2013) collaborated with Munich Re on: "Facts on climate change in Russia in 'Geo Topics: Natural catastrophes
2012 Analyses, assessments, positions' Munich Re. http://www.munichre.com/publications/302-07742_en.pdf
S. Surminski collaborated with the Geneva Association on two reports: ‘Warming of the Oceans and Implications for the (Re)insurance
Industry’ Geneva Association Report No 8 (date) and ‘Liability dynamics in the domain of Climate Change’ Geneva Association Report No 9
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Each issue we ask one researcher to contribute a short update on their recent research progress.
Dr Ana Lopez is a Research Officer in CCCEP and CATS, with expertise in probabilistic climate change projections and their use in the quantification of future impacts and adaptation to climate change.
My research during the last few months has focussed on three different areas: the exploration of the robustness of the statistical statements about detection of anthropogenic climate change, the science perspective on the loss and damage concept currently being discussed in the UNFCCC negotiations, and the evaluation of the resilience of adaptation measures implemented in small scale agriculture in South America.
The statistical detection and attribution methodology underlying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ``very likely'' statement that anthropogenic emissions are affecting climate, strongly depends on the characterization of internal climate variability. In collaboration with colleagues at Oxford University, I tested the robustness of this statement in the case of global mean surface air temperature, under different representations of such variability. Representations of internal climate variability were explored using simple stochastic models that nevertheless span a representative range of plausible temporal autocorrelation structures. Our results suggested that a wider variety of robustness tests, other than simple comparisons of residual variance, should be performed when dealing with other climate variables and/or different spatial scales.
The concept of loss and damage is a relatively new work stream of the international climate change regime. However, since there is no official definition of the concept, its real implications are not clear. In collaboration with Swenja Surminski (CCCEP) we reviewed the implications of loss and damage (L&D) for decision-making with a special focus on the role of climate science. We identified three broad policy goals embedded in the discussion: creating awareness about the sensitivity of human and natural systems to climate; developing risk reduction and risk management approaches to enhance adaptation, reduce vulnerability and build resilience; and informing compensation mechanisms. We argued that in all cases, an understanding of current and future climate related L&D is necessary, and that for the first two goals, existing decision making frameworks can help deal with uncertainties and avoid a ‘wait and see’ mentality for most L&D decisions. The compensation component of L&D, however, appears as strongly depending on the feasibility of attributing climate risks to anthropogenic climate change. From the science point of view, this is a very complex and presumably unsolvable question. We argue that the increased focus on the attribution question might put on hold efforts to integrate climate change and block necessary action.
Based on my previous work on a methodology to guide the use of probabilistic climate change information in the water sector, I developed an illustrative case study that is going to be part of the final guide on uncertainty management to be published by the CIRCLE2_ERA European Network. I am currently collaborating with researchers and local practitioners in Argentina in order to apply similar methodologies within a comprehensive risk management approach, to analyse the sustainability of on-going reactive adaptation measures in small family and subsistence agriculture in the region.
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Visiting Fellow Reason Machete (University of Botswana) will be visiting CATS from 19 May-6 June.
Visiting Professor Arthur Peterson (Chief Scientist, Dutch Environmental Agency) will be visiting CATS from 3-14 June.
Nick Watkins will be a senior visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Complex Systems in Dresden from 1st September for 9 months.
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25 -27 Feb - Ana Lopez presented a statement entitled “Are loss and damages climate stressors attributable to global warming”, in “Perspectives on Loss & Damage: Society, Climate Change, and Decision Making” at a Scientific Conference in Bonn.
27 Feb - Jim Baker gave a presentation on the national security implications of the Climate Extremes report at a Climatedesk conference in Washington, DC; details can be found at http://climatedesk.org/2013/02/how-the-us-navys-clean-energy-evolution-contributes-to-national-security-and-climate-change-progress/
Feb - Dave Stainforth gave a seminar entitled: 'How big an ensemble do we need to quantify the climate of a climate model?' at the University of Chicago.
13-14 Mar - Dave Stainforth gave a presentation at the EQUIP workshop: 'Strengthening resilience through improved treatment of uncertainty in weather, climate and impacts.' at the Royal Society. The title of the presentation was; 'Equipping Users While Maintaining the Credibility of Science'
The slides are available from: http://www.equip.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Equipping-Users-While-Maintaining-the-Credibility-of-Science-D-Stainforth.pdf
14 Mar - Nick Watkins gave an invited talk to the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications annual meeting.
18-20 Mar - Swenja Surminski hosted and chaired two science-practitioner sessions: ‘uncertainty and decision making’ and ‘loss and damage of climate change’ at the ECCA conference in Hamburg. Partners: industry, government, academia. Swenja also presented on the ‘role of private sector in adaptation’. Speakers included, Ana Lopez who gave a talk entitled “Loss and damage: a physical science perspective” and Dave Stainforth who participated in a panel discussion entitled: “Addressing Uncertainties in National Adaptation Strategies.”
19 Mar - Erica Thompson gave a talk to a community group in Buckinghamshire on the subject of "Climate Change: what we know and what we don't know" which was very well attended, and the discussion of uncertainty was well received by the audience.
26 Mar - Pauline Barrieu spoke at the ' Extremes and Model Uncertainty - A Multidisciplinary Workshop' at Imperial College.
3 Apr - Ana Lopez was invited to a seminar on “Developing Adaptation Strategies under uncertainty”, in the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires.
EGU 2013: 8-12 Apr
Leonard Smith was the Convenor of a short course: 'Predictability in Theory and Predictability in Practice.'
Ewelina Sienkiewicz presented a poster by A. S. Jarman and L. A. Smith about “Forecasting the Probability of Tropical Cyclone Formation: the reliability of NHC forecasts from the 2012 hurricane season.”
Also at EGU, Nick Watkins gave four presentations: "The scaling of wild events in stochastic models: The Fisher limit, the Mandelbrot limit, and FARIMA as a model of the intermediate cases", "Bayesian Analysis of Non-Gaussian Long-Range Dependent Processes", "Compound Extremes and Bunched Black (or Grouped Grey) Swans". "A spatio-temporal analysis of US station temperature trends over the last century" Nick Watkins and Dave Stainforth co-authored two presentations given by Sandra Chapman, "Mapping the changing pattern of local climate as an observed distribution" and "An observationally centred method to quantify local climate change as a distribution". (Abstracts)
15-19 Apr - Erica Thompson, Leonard Smith and Edward Wheatcroft attended the 91st European Study Group with Industry at the University of Bristol.
15-19 Apr - Dave Stainforth and Ewelina Sienkiewicz attended the Met Office “Workshop on systematic errors in weather and climate models” in Exeter.
18 Apr - Jim Baker gave a presentation on the Climate Extremes report at a meeting of the World-Wide Human Geography Data Working Group at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York.
24 Apr - Erica Thompson gave a talk to a school group in West Hampstead, who invited her to counter their Geography teacher's climate sceptic viewpoint!
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E. Suckling and L. A. Smith ‘An evaluation of decadal probability forecasts from state-of-the-art climate models’ (under review) Journal of Climate
R. L. Machete ‘Model Imperfection and Predicting Predictability' (accepted) International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos
J. Imbers, A. Lopez, C. Huntingford, M. Allen, “Testing the robustness of the anthropogenic climate change detection statements using different empirical models”, (accepted) Journal of Geophysical Research.
M. Allen, A. Lopez, F. Otto, E. Suckling, A Lorenz, D. Rowlands, “Using observations to constrain climate models forecasts”, (submitted) to Climatic Change as part of the EQUIP special issue, January 2013
S. Surminski, A. Lopez, “The concept of Loss and Damage of climate change – a new challenge for climate decision-making? A science perspective”, (submitted) to Climate and Development
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ERC Synergy grant ‘Collaborative Laboratory for Predicting Market Singularities & Extreme Events in Economy (COLLAPSE)’. Submitted 10 Jan 2013. Led by Tuomo Kauranne, LUT (Finland). PI at LSE L Smith
FP7 grant ‘Saving water and energy and increasing efficiency for dairy products value chain (We4value)’). Led by Lars Moberger, Swedish Institute of Technology (SP). PI at LSE H Wynn.
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On 22 April Dave Stainforth, Leonard Smith, Erica Thompson, Nigel Harvey (UCL) and Adam Harris (UCL) submitted written evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Inquiry into “Climate Change: Public understanding and policy implications”.
On 12-15 May all CATS research staff and students will be going for ‘Research away days’ in Lyme Regis.
As a member of the ASA Advisory Committee on Climate Change Policy (ACCCP) Professor Leonard Smith was a member of a Climate Science Working Group that took part in the 2013 Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill, on 26-27 February. The purpose of the visits is to provide a non-partisan opportunity for scientists of many disciplines to build relationships and provide Members of Congress access to the best possible climate science information.
Jim Baker is serving as a formal reviewer of IPCC Working Group III AR5 report Chapter 2 on Integrated Risk and Uncertainty Assessment of Climate Change Response Policies.
Dave Stainforth will be participating in a workshop in Tromso 6th- 9th May. This is part of a successful small funding proposal on which he was named, entitled: 'Adaptation to unknown territory: potential and limitations of observation-based projections.' Nick Watkins will also be attending and was named on the proposal.
Erica Thompson and Emma Suckling are currently in the early stages of planning for a student workshop under the theme 'Climate models, uncertainty and decision-relevance', to take place in late 2013 or early 2014. Further details to follow!
CATS journal club is a new institution, aiming to discuss both the basic physics and fundamentals of climate modelling, and also the latest relevant research in climate science. All CATS members are welcome (please email Erica Thompson to be added to the mailing list), and select outsiders by invitation only. The group aims to meet approximately every other week, with some gaps to avoid clashes with other events.
The Climate Change Decision Theory Group will now be superseded by the “Climate Science and Response Strategies” group which will meet every 3rd Thursday of the month. The inaugural meeting will be held on 16th May, from 16.30-18.00, in the GR meeting room, 11th floor, Tower 3. Alec Morton will chair this first meeting, and will share his views on the institutional adaptation project of CCCEP II. The next meetings of the group will be held on June 20, July 18 and September 19 (no meeting in August). For more information on this group please contact Alessandro Tavoni.
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