23 September 2010 | General, ESSEM
COST-ESF High-level Research Conference on Extreme Environmental Events
From 13 to 17 December 2010, COST and ESF will gather leading scientists and young researchers in Cambridge, United Kingdom, to discuss extreme environmental events and the uncertainties inherent in their understanding. The goal of this event is to stimulate interdisciplinary research collaboration among climatologists, meteorologists, modellers, statisticians, and other environmental scientists, and to promote scientific excellence in these fields.
Many projections of future climate scenarios are presented as changes in the average climate state, for example the 2 °C mean global temperature rise predicted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, whilst average changes are easier to detect, humans are more directly influenced by changes in the extremes of climate (or, extremes of weather). In fact, the quality and quantity of life on earth could seriously deteriorate without any mean climate changes at all, simply by extending the extremes at which we experience different forms of weather.
Statisticians have long understood changes in extremes to be related to the behaviour of probability distributions, and their ideas are starting to be used by climatologists and impacts specialists around the world to predict and understand climatological processes. This conference will bring some of that expertise together with practical experience of geohazards and technical knowledge of climate modelling. Simultaneously, participants will identify requirements for better information management to meet a growing demand by policy and decision-makers for transparent and credible data on future climate. Only such information will allow experts to quantify the risks, to formulate and implement realistic adaptation and mitigation strategies, and to put disaster response programmes into action.
‘Bringing the best and brightest minds together in Cambridge, we hope to advance international collaboration to best respond to what is happening to the climate as well as to make better use of available research resources and infrastructures worldwide’ said Andrew Parnell, conference chair and lecturer at School of Mathematical Sciences, University College Dublin.
The conference will feature lectures by invited high-level speakers, short talks by young and early stage researchers, poster sessions and open discussion periods, as well as a forward-look panel discussion about future developments. Please submit your application no later than 28 September 2010, in order to present your latest research outcome, or discuss current scientific understanding and recent developments with your peers. Grants are available for young researchers to cover the conference fee and travel costs.
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Participate
Please fill in the application form no later than Tuesday 28 September 2010.
