"Informing climate change adaptation - towards a strategy for climate risk assessment"
Rowan Sutton, Climate Director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Professor in the Department of Meteorology
Friday 10th June from 1.30pm
University of Reading, Henley Business School, Whiteknights Campus (138 on campus map)
Please reserve a place by emailing Kathy Maskell
Running order
| 1.30 |
Registration |
| 2.00 |
Lecture |
| |
Q&A |
| 3.00 |
Networking and refreshments |
About our speaker
Professor Rowan Sutton is Director of Climate Research in NERC's National Centre for Atmospheric Science, and a professor of climate science at the University of Reading. Rowan has been instrumental in developing climate research within the UK during a period of increasing demand for information to guide climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Rowan's extensive and productive research career has focused on understanding the role of ocean-atmosphere interactions in climate variability, climate change, and climate prediction. He has contributed extensively to European and international climate research, held positions on various international research bodies, and has an extensive record of influential publications.
About the lecture
The world is becoming increasingly aware of the need to adapt to the changing risks from weather and climate events, such as floods, storms and droughts. Such extreme events can result from natural variability, but are also increasing as a result of human induced climate change. As awareness grows, we are seeing a rapidly increasing demand for trustworthy information that can help people make informed decisions about how to adapt their lives, businesses and communities.
This demand for information has led to the emerging concept of climate services to "enable better management of the risks of climate variability and change, and adaptation to climate change, at all levels". Whilst superficially attractive, a difficulty with this concept is its huge breadth. What should be the priorities of the climate research community in seeking to meet the demand for climate services, at a time when the uncertainties in adaptation-relevant projections are often huge and poorly quantified? Conversely, in the face of very large uncertainties, how can the users of climate research access the knowledge that is of greatest importance for the decisions they face? C urrently we have no strategy; instead we have a collection of ad hoc approaches that are ill-fit for purpose. Rowan will lay out what he sees as the essential elements of an adequate strategy, including the consequences for public and private sector priorities.
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