Once more unto the breach!
Fall AGU this year will be (as last year)
…the largest Earth Science conference on the planet, and is where you will get previews of new science results, get a sense of what other experts think about current topics, and indulge in the more social side of being a scientist.
The full scientific program is available for searching here.
As in recent years, there will be a lot of live streaming of key sessions and high profile lectures, and continuous twitter commentary (follow the hashtag #AGU14), that give people not attending to get a sense of what’s going on. Some of us (including Mike) are attending and will try and give some highlights as the week goes along.
Some obvious highlights (that will be live-streamed) are the Bjerknes lecture from Brian Hoskins about the Hadley Cell (Tues. 8am), Ulrike Lohmann on clouds in the Charney lecture (Tues. 9am). The Hydroclimatic extremes session on Wednesday morning is being live-streamed and should be very apropos given recent discussions. Peter de Menocal is giving the Emiliani lecture (Wed. 10:20am) on the connections between paleo-climate and human evolution. Not related to climate so much, the sessions on the Rosetta/Philae science will also be viewable (Wednesday). The Lorenz lecture is being given by Demetris Koutsoyiannis a hydrologist whose work on climate statistics has been commented on here before. The Schnieder and Tyndall lectures are being given by Chris Field and Kelly Redmond on Thursday afternoon.
Another interesting presentation is from the group behind “Climate Feedback” – which is a new initiative to help annotate climate science related journalism on Thursday evening (6:30 pm onwards, including a hackathon!). There are also a couple of “SWIRLs” (connected presentations and sessions) on Characterising Uncertainty and Global change: Science Literacy, Societal Impacts, and Response Strategies that should give a broad range of perspectives on the topics.
As was available last year, AGU and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund have organised a facility for individual consultations with a lawyer (by appointment via lawyer@climatesciencedefensefund.org) for people either who have found themselves involved in legal proceedings associated with their science or people who are just interested in what they might need to be prepared for.
There are obviously many individual presentations that will be of interest, but too many to list here. Feel free to add suggestions in the comments.
Please also recommend any public, open events or get-togethers
for those who live nearby — some AGU members aren’t paid attendees, and some general public would be interested.
I’ll be giving a talk tuesday morning (11:05am) on how any potential hemispheric asymmetry in volcanic forcing matters. No cabbage throwing.
Emiliani
[Response: Fixed. Thanks. – gavin]
Since you are taking corrections: Schneider (not Schnieder).
Any information/comments on the work represented here:
“Arctic sea ice volume holds up in 2014”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30399079
Sample quote:
“In the three years following its launch in 2010, the satellite saw a steady decline in autumn volume at the end of the summer melt.
The deep lows in this short series were 5,300 and 5,400 cubic km in 2011 and 2012, respectively. But then came the bounce back, with colder weather over the following two years resetting the minimum.
Indeed, Cryosat’s five-year October average now shows pretty stable volume – even modest growth (2014 is 12% above the five year-average).”
[Response: All that article really says is that 2013 and 2014 were not minima in sea ice. Two years of data is too little to say anything much more. The final sentence in the article is telling: “Far more data is required, over a much longer period of time.” –eric]
Chris Colose says: 14 Dec 2014 at 3:39 PM
I’ll be giving a talk tuesday morning (11:05am) on how any potential hemispheric asymmetry in volcanic forcing matters. No cabbage throwing.
Cold winters in the N. Hemisphere are often associated with SSW..
On the last page of this article https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00563477/document
it is stated:
It has been demonstrated that there is a strong possibility that the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) is on certain occasions caused by the Kamchatka’s peninsula volcanoes. Sudden Stratospheric Warming events are extremely rare in the Antarctica. There are some plausible explanations for this, but most likely is that there is only one active volcano in the area, Mt. Erebus.
Could someone at the AGU meeting please ask someone with the (U.S.) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (which is under NOAA.gov) a couple of questions: first, which of their Centers is involved in predicting temperature change decades hence? (or is this not important) And second, do they think public understanding takes a hit, when their Climate Prediction Center spokespeople enumerate the major forces influencing CPC’s predictions (which are still for 2 years or less in future, right?) ?
“THE EARTH SCIENCES IN THE AGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT”
JEFFREY D. SACHS (AGU 15 Dec 2014):
https://virtualoptions.agu.org/media/U12B.+Frontier%27s+of+Geophysics+Lecture%2C+Presented+By+Jeffrey++Sachs/0_pf006u0q
@5 Robin > BBC headline: “Arctic sea ice volume holds up in 2014″ & response: “All that article really says is that 2013 and 2014 were not minima in sea ice.”
Thanks to both. This is why this site is needed and part of what it does so well.
In response to #7:
from the NCEP web page:
The Office of the Director at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction gives overarching management to the nine centers, which include the:
Aviation Weather Center provides aviation warnings and forecasts of hazardous flight conditions at all levels within domestic and international air space.
Climate Prediction Center monitors and forecasts short-term climate fluctuations and provides information on the effects climate patterns can have on the nation.
Environmental Modeling Center develops and improves numerical weather, climate, hydrological and ocean prediction through a broad program in partnership with the research community.
National Hurricane Center provides forecasts of the movement and strength of tropical weather systems and issues watches and warnings for the U.S. and surrounding areas.
NCEP Central Operations sustains and executes the operational suite of numerical analyses and forecast models and prepares NCEP products for dissemination.
Ocean Prediction Center issues weather warnings and forecasts out to five days for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of 30 degrees North.
Space Weather Prediction Center provides space weather alerts and warnings for disturbances that can affect people and equipment working in space and on earth.
Storm Prediction Center provides tornado and severe weather watches for the contiguous United States along with a suite of hazardous weather forecasts.
Weather Prediction Center provides nationwide analysis and forecast guidance products out through seven days.
——
NOAA research into climate change (predicting temperatures decades hence) happens at the NOAA OAR laboratories…For example GFDL and ESRL (and in particular within ESRL, the Physical Sciences Division).
I am not there but wish on fertile conclusions
For future meetings’ online “virtual options” schedule PDF, it would be wonderful if AGU could show speaker and subject of each lecture, in addition to titles like today’s 4pm rather terse “Van Allen Lecture”.
Source: fallmeeting.agu.org/2014/files/2014/11/2014-Virtual-Options.pdf
Forget libel suits- the latest Climate Wars atrocity is a frontal attack on beer at AGU meetings !
#13–Ah! Good old (and I do mean old!) Carrie Nation!
‘Geoscience and the Arts’: tweeted from the AGU:
https://twitter.com/scottstgeorge/status/544745313328566272/photo/1
http://www.slideshare.net/scottstgeorge/st-georgea-songofourwarmingplanet
(expand text for backstory)
This slideshare reviews and updates the “A Song for Our Warming Planet” project of cellist Daniel Crawford and colleagues at U Minn.
I look forward to hear the new audio, if not the lecture, in a public posting sometime.
Project was originally heard from on this site (re: climate science and communication) this way:
ensia.com/videos/a-song-of-our-warming-planet/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t08CLczdK4
See thanks at end of video to Scott St. George. He gave the talk and made the slideshare.
The great intrigue of the original solo cello with animated graphic is that it requires a yearly update–a new note. Someone should make a widget of it. Really. Guitar tablature is out, with a note for 2013.
> my comment 22 Dec 2014 at 3:17 AM
Slide 10 of the slideshare embeds video for “A Song for Our Warming Planet.” But I look forward to hearing: “Planetary Bands, Warming World” (slides 20-22).