Public Lectures

Dr. Chris Funk of the USGS and UC Santa Barbara explores the relationship between climate change, catastrophic events, and human response. Between 2015 and 2018 an unprecedented series of droughts, floods, fires, heat waves and hurricanes took the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people, resulting in over $700 billion dollars in damages, costs similar in magnitude to a large scale war. The frequency and costs of weather and climate related catastrophes are increasing dramatically, as a growing population and a warmer climate place more people in harm's way. Warming of the atmosphere can both increase the intensity of extreme precipitation and cyclones, while also increasing the impact of droughts and the extent of wildfires. Warming of the oceans can lead to coral bleaching and more intense wet or dry cycles. Against this back- drop of need, however, improved monitoring systems and models can help us improve our understanding of our physical, social and economic systems and help us manage risk and work towards a more sustainable future.

Sea level rise, storm surges, heatwaves, and increases in dengue and other infectious diseases are projected to increasingly affect the health of populations in the Pacific with global climate change. The risks will vary over time and place, challenging the ability of communities and health systems to adequately prepare. Further, these hazards will interact with other social and environmental trends, with the potential for increasing or decreasing the extent of the challenges. Effective and timely adaptation can increase the resilience of individuals and communities to what climate change brings. Further, reducing greenhouse gases and pursuing sustainable development goals through cutting emissions of air pollutants, increasing biking and walking, and changing dietary patterns can benefit health in the short-term and reduce the projected health risks of climate change in the longer-term. The magnitude and pattern of health risks over the coming decades depends on the choices we make navigating the course ahead.

In November 1995, after three days of deliberations in Madrid's Palacio de Congresas, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reached the historic finding that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". This sentence changed the world. While other individuals and national scientific organizations had reached similar conclusions before Madrid, the "discernible human influence" statement marked the first time that the international climate science community had spoken so clearly and forcefully.

The reaction was swift. The "discernible human influence" conclusion led to Congressional investigations, charges of "scientific cleansing" allegations of corruption of the peer-review process and professional misconduct, and claims of political tampering. Santer spent several years addressing such criticism. This lecture is a reflection on the top ten scientific and personal lessons Santer learned after publication of the IPCC's 1995 Report. Many of these lessons still have relevance in today's world.

Elizabeth Barnes loves noise - atmospheric noise that is. Her passion is sifting through geophysical data in search of previously undetected signals. She gets to do this every day, as well as teach the next generation of scientists techniques for doing so, as an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University. Her research covers a variety of questions related to atmospheric variability, including, "Can we forecast extreme weather 5 weeks in advance?" to "How does the atmosphere respond to volcanic eruptions?" Prof. Barnes and her fantastic research group have written over 40 papers on extracting atmospheric "music" from the "noise" across a range of past, present and future climates.

Prof Mark Howden is the Director of the Climate Change Institute at ANU and a Honorary Professor at Melbourne University. Mark's work has focused on how climate impacts on, and innovative adaptation options for, systems we value: agriculture and food security, the natural resource base, ecosystems and biodiversity, energy, water and urban systems. He helped develop the national and international greenhouse gas inventories which are the basis for the Paris Agreement and has assessed sustainable ways to reduce emissions. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 27 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles. Mark has over 400 publications. He has been a major contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1991, sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He is now a Vice Chair of IPCC Working Group 2. Mark sat on the US Federal Advisory Committee for the 3rd National Climate Assessment and currently contributes to several national and international science and policy advisory bodies.

Dr. Richard Johnson of the University of Colorado will share results from his collaborative research that investigated how climate change during the Miocene caused a near-extinction of our ancestors, and how certain mutations led to the emergence of a lineage that later became humans and modern apes. Insights from these studies have led to a better understanding of how all animals survive climate change, and also for the diseases that are expected to emerge or worsen in the next century. It also may lead to new approaches to stay healthy with increasing global temperatures.