by Judith Curry
Last week, over 20,000 scientists met in San Francisco at the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Trying to take in the large number of talks and sessions is mind numbingly overwhelming. The AGU helps by highlighting certain things:
Below I select some of the named lectures and sessions on demand to highlight.
Named lectures
The named lectures that are probably of greatest interest to Denizens are listed below. Warning: each lecture is 55 minutes, and there is typically a 5 minute introduction.
Jane Lubchenco: Predicting & Managing Extreme Weather and Climate Events JC note: Lubchenco is the Undersecretary of NOAA.
Paul Newman: The Recent Findings of the “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2020” and the World Avoided by the Montreal Protocol.
Graeme Stephens: Climate Change: A Very Cloudy Picture JC note: This is an excellent talk, giving a historical perspective on our understanding of cloud feedback, insights from new observational tools, and a perspective on challenges and outlook for future progress.
Sessions on Demand
These sessions are given in their entirety (2 hours long), you cannot dial in to specific presentations. Also, at the links provided, you may need to scroll down to find the particular session. Here are some sessions of relevance to topics discussed at Climate Etc.:
U13C Effectively Communicating Climate Science (How to Address Related Issues) II. JC note: I missed this session when preparing my previous AGU post on communication sessions at the AGU. The first talk is by Susan Joy Hasool, who is the communications expert that has replaced Chris Mooney on the AGU board. The second talk is by David Cook of SkepticalScience.
U21C Data and Information Quality Really Matters in the Era of Predictive and Often Contentious Science I . JC note: I listened to a few of these talks, I definitely recommend the talks by Gunderson (1st talk) and Carlson (4th talk). If the ppts for these talks ever appear, I will do an entire thread on these talks.
A32B Atmospheric Sciences New Fellows Speak II. JC note: the first two talks in this session are:
- Chris Folland: High Predictive Skill of Global Surface Temperature a Year Ahead
- Andy Lacis: Atmospheric Water Vapor: Climate Feedback and/or Forcing?
U32A Coupled Processes in the Arctic System: Feedbacks, Amplification, and Impacts on Midlatitudes I . JC note: The talks in this session are listed here (Wed).
NG32B Current Issues in Stochastic Weather and Climate Modeling I . JC note: The talks in this session are listed here (Wed).
GC43G Stephen Schneider Global Environmental Change Lecture: History of Global Warming. JC note: this session consists of an invited lecture by Ben Santer.
U44B Geoengineering Research Policy II: The talks in this session are listed here (Thurs).
From other blogs
Several other blogs have been discussing the meeting:
Climate Abyss – John Nielsen-Gammon, with the following “Dispatches from AGU”:
- Parameter estimation and climate change
- Probable maximum precipitation becoming more probable
- An equable climate curveball
- Another way we change the world (Paul Newman’s lecture)
- The trouble with shortcuts to climate sensitivity (Graeme Stephens’ lecture)
- Global warming and rainfall
- Model validation blitz
Real Climate has three posts on the AGU meeting that can be found here.