Academic Year 2011-2012

Rachael Shwom, Human Ecology

EXTREME WEATHER AND CLIMATE CHANGE: HOW CAN WE ADDRESS UNCERTAINTY?

Cook Campus Center

Co-sponsored by Climate and Environmental Change Initiative
Katrina. Irene. Droughts in Texas and the Horn of Africa. Floods in the Midwest, Thailand and Pakistan. What’s next?

 

Does the progression of climate change portend future bouts of ‘extreme weather’?  Predicting the timing of such events remains an uncertain business.  How, then, should scientists communicate such risks to a skeptical public? How are members of the public likely to assess these risks? And how can policymakers make plans for adaptation, mitigation and development in the face of this uncertainty?  Four distinguished panelists addressed these and related questions in a series of short presentations followed by a dynamic panel and public discussion.

Video recording of the event now available from RUTV

Presentations:

pdf Attributing Extreme Events

Gabriel Vecchi, Research Oceanographer, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

pdf Integrating Science and Policy

Baruch Fischhoff, Howard Heinz University Professor of Social and Decision Sciences and Engineering and Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University

pdf Uncertainty: Weather and Climate  (click here for slide 37 & 38 video) pdf

Joe Witte, George Mason University, Center for Climate Change Communication, broadcast meteorologist, formerly Chief Meteorologist at NBC TV Network

pdf Communicating Climate Science and Uncertainty through Scenarios and Integrated Regional Modeling

Richard Moss, Senior Staff Scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland and Visiting Senior Research Scientist at Maryland's Earth Systems Science Interdisciplinary Center

Discussants from Rutgers University:

Lee Clarke, Sociology

Phaedra Daipha, Sociology

Benjamin Lintner, Environmental Science

Ken Miller, Earth and Planetary Sciences

David Robinson, Geography

Rachael Shwom, Human Ecology

Rutgers students interacted with our panelists in a special evening session on communicating climate change co-sponsored by Project Civility and a number of other organizations.