CWC Sponsored Seminars
Seminar by Profs. Lonnie Thompson and Bryan Mark
January 21, 2009
Professors Lonnie Thompson and Bryan Mark invite you to Byrd Polar Research Center for a discussion at 7:00 PM on January 21 in Room 240 of Scott Hall. They'll discuss Andean glaciers and climate change. Please see the PDF announcement below.
Lecture by Prof. Geoffrey Heal
February 12 and 13, 2009
Prof. Geoffrey Heal is the Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility at Columbia University. He is a director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, was a commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission, and was Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Studies. Heal's current research interests reach from financial markets, where he studies the role of derivatives and the securitization of catastrophic risks, to environmental conservation, where he studies the use of market-based incentives for conservation of forests and biodiversity.
Prof. Heal's home page at Columbia.
Contact Brent Sohngen
Lecture by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri
Sometime during the first half of 2009, likely March, April, or May
Dr. Pachauri is the Chairman of the IPCC. The IPCC released their report in late 2007, attracting truly global attention from scientists, policy makers, industry, everyone! We are working on the schedule for Dr. Pachauri's OSU visit and will release details in the coming months.
The IPCC web page, click and learn more!
Contact Rattan Lal
Lecture by Dr. David Randall
October 16, 2008, 2:00 PM Room 1080 Derby Hall Joint seminar of the CWC and Department of Geography
Lecture is titled, "Climate modeling and climate change"
Click here to download an MSWord document with more details.
Click here to download an Excel file with scheduling details.
Click here to download a PDF of Dr. Randall's CV.
OSU alum Prof. David A. Randall is a full professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences in Colorado State University. He is one of the worlds leading authorities in global climate modeling, and has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers and books on global climate and climate change. He led the global climate model evaluation projects in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and was the Coordinating Leading Author for Chapter 8 Climate models and their evaluation. He has received NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and American Meteorological Societys Meisinger Award. His other positions include fellow of American Meteorological Society (AMS), fellow of American Geophysical Union (AGU), fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Chief Editor of Journal of Climate, the worlds most prestigious journal on climate and climate change. He has received numerous grants from NASA, U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. Recently, he got a $20 million award from NSF to set up an NSF Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP) to improve the representation of clouds in climate models.
Here are some links:
http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/dept/faculty/randall.php http://kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu/rr/groupPubs.html http://kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu/cmmap/index.html http://kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu/cmmap/research/contact-research.htmlContact Jialin Lin
Lecture by Mr. Fred Pearce
October 10, 2008; 3:30 PM
Title: "WHEN THE RIVERS RUN DRY, why water is set to be the defining crisis of the 21st century"
Location: Physics Research Building, Smith Seminar Room 1080 located near middle of atrium on the main floor. Note, the room only holds ~80 people, so come early!
Special Information: This lecture will be live web cast. The seminar will be webcast from this link: Click here to watch and to do the initial set-up.
Mr. Fred Pearce has authored a dozen popular books on climate and water themes, including "When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century" and "With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change". Mr. Pearce provides a unique global and integrated viewpoint on issues central to the CWC. His visit is scheduled for October 10.
Print this flier: click here for PDF flier for the lecture
Contact Doug Alsdorf
Lecture by Dr. Eric Lindstrom
May 23, 2008 Joint seminar of the CWC and BPRC
Eric Lindstrom will be visiting OSU, Wednesday through Friday, May 21-23. Eric is NASA's Program Scientist for all of physical oceanography. He is NASA HQ's lead for satellite missions such as Jason (the follow-on to the Topex/Poseidon mission), QuickSCAT (measures ocean winds), and Aquarius (measures ocean salinity). He is also the HQ lead for SWOT, the Surface Water Ocean Topography mission which has its U.S. hydrologic home here at OSU (http://bprc.osu.edu/water/).
Eric would enjoy chatting with researchers whose interests involve oceanography, hydrology, the Great Lakes, meteorology, and climate. Please email Doug Alsdorf (alsdorf.1@osu.edu) and I'll make certain you have an opportunity to visit with Eric.
He is giving a seminar co-sponsored by the CWC and BPRC titled "Physical Oceanography Research at NASA" on Friday May 23rd at 3:30 in Byrd Polar's lecture room (Scott Hall room 240).
Contact Doug Alsdorf
Lecture by Dr. James Hansen
May 1, 2008 Joint seminar of the CWC and School of Earth Sciences
Dr. Hansen will present two seminars. An afternoon 4:00 PM technical lecture in Mendenhall room 100 titled "How 'Sensitive' is the Earth's Climate? Uh, oh." and an evening 7:00 PM public lecture in the Fawcett Center auditorium titled "Climate Tipping Points: The Threat to the Planet". It is recommended to arrive early for the 4:00 pm lecture because the room holds 200 people.
Click here to download a PDF with more details.
Lecture by Prof. Mark Berliner
April 3, 2008 Joint seminar of the CWC and Department of Statistics
18th Avenue Building (EA), Room 170, 3:30-4:30pm
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released its Fourth Assessment Report claiming "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising mean sea level.... Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations....Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes, and wind patterns." The American Statistical Association has also recently released a statement endorsing these conclusions of the IPCC. I review the development of arguments underlying such claims; how these arguments relate to statistical analysis and the treatment of uncertainty; and how statisticians can contribute to the issues raised in climate change studies. I will also present a recent example of a Bayesian approach to multi-model information processing for developing climate forecasts.
Contact Kate Calder
Lecture by Prof. Connie Woodhouse
March 6, 2008 Joint seminar of the CWC and Department of Geography
1080 Derby Hall, 3:30-5:00pm
Connie A. Woodhouse, Department of Geography and Regional Development, Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, University of Arizona
Colorado River Water: Past, Present, and Future?
The Colorado River is the major water supply for seven southwestern U.S. and two northwestern Mexican states. Drought conditions which have continued, almost unbroken since 2000, have had significant impacts on this region which has experienced rapid population growth and increased water consumption over the past few decades. The convergence of higher water demands and decreased flow due to severe and persistent drought have brought up critical questions regarding the sustainable management of this resource. Reconstructions of past streamflow from tree rings have made apparent the over]allocation of Colorado River water resources, as well as the fact that droughts much more persistent than any in the gage record have occurred in past centuries. Water managers are now considering the use of the extended records of flow in water resource management. Although the climate of the past will not be an exact analogue for the future, paleohydrologic records are proving to be relevant and useful for water resource planning and management, especially given the uncertainties in projections for future climate.
Contact Dave Porinchu
Lecture by The Honorable Dr. Iajuddin Ahmed, President of Bangladesh
November 2, 2007
Quoting the Lantern, "Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed will come to Ohio State to speak about the consequences of global warming today at 3 p.m. at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The lecture, titled "Global Warming Effects on Sea Level Rise and Arsenic Poisoning in Bangladesh," is intended to leave students and faculty informed about the climate crisis as it relates to the region. This is particularly important to Bangladesh because excessive flooding has already plagued the area."
Click here to learn more about this Presidential visit as written-up in the Lantern
Lecture by The Honorable Dr. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland
April 2, 2007
Quoting the Office of Extension (link below), Prof. Rattan Lal's "visit to Iceland is the beginning of a series of research, Extension and academic collaborations. The collaborations are designed to help restore soil fertility, create political awareness of the seriousness of land degradation in the face of human misuse, using sequestered carbon to aid in offsetting carbon emissions, a major objective of the Kyoto Protocol, and develop exchange programs between Ohio State and the University of Iceland."