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| AGCI 2007 Science Session I |
Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate
24 - 29 June 2007
Session organizers: Tom Karl, Gerald Meehl, Bill Murray and Chris Miller
Agency leads: Tom Karl, Chris Miller, Anjuli Bamzai, Don Anderson, Tsengdar Lee and Tom Armstrong
Overview
This summer AGCI returns for its third session on the critical topic of climate extremes in its summer workshop “Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate.” The 2007 meeting will develop and summarize the scientific understanding of weather and climate extremes for the United States Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).
The goal of the CCSP is to conduct and sponsor research that will affect national policies and decisions. The upcoming June meeting seeks to fulfill the extremes climate component Goal 3: “to reduce uncertainty in projections of how the Earth’s climate and related systems may change in the future.”
In the five-day workshop, scientists will discuss the most recent findings on extremes, including new modeling techniques and data from recent studies (such as studies on the frequency and intensity of hurricanes) and produce a draft report. The report will become one of the CCSP 21 reports on key research issues.
Why study climate extremes?
- Climate extremes can be severe and wide-ranging, affecting living and non-living systems with mild to severe impacts.
- Climate extremes affect all sectors of the economy: agriculture, utilities, transportation, water resources and the insurance industry.
- The cost of weather-related disasters can be considerable (e.g. Hurricane Katrina).
- From 1980-2005, the cost of damages from 67 weather-related disasters in the U.S. exceeded $1 billion.
- While global assessments have been conducted, to date collaboration has yet to focus on North America, which houses some of the best climate observing systems in the world.
- Changes in weather extremes have important biological impacts, including the destruction of habitat and ecosystems.
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| Hurricane Katrina 2005 (Courtesy NASA) |
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