ESF Research Conferences

Conference programme PDF (140 KB) - Last updated 25-November-2010.

Understanding the frequency and magnitude of extreme environmental events and their impacts is a critical aspect of climate prediction. This conference aims to bring together an inter-disciplinary group including statisticians, climate modellers, meteorologists, and other environmental scientists to focus on extreme events and the uncertainties inherent in their understanding.

Sessions will focus on:

Theme 1: Extreme events and statistical methodology

Questions:

• How do statisticians define an event?
• What makes it an extreme event?
• What statistical methods are used in extreme event identification?
• What is the difference between long-term mean changes and extremes of a distribution?
• What is the current state of the art in extremes methodology?
• What common mistakes are made in dealing with extreme events?

Theme 2: Modelling of extreme environmental events

Questions: 

• How do climate models deal with extreme events?
• How might extreme events be better incorporated into climate models?
• What do models of extreme events currently predict?
• How are these predictions validated?
• What research/experiments are required to improve predictions?
• What past extremes do we know about?

Theme 3: Impacts of extreme events

Questions:

• What are the potential impacts of extreme events on ecosystems, plants, forests, animals and micro-organisms?
• How might extreme events affect the migrations of animals?
• How do ecosystems cope with mean extremes versus extremes of distribution?

The conference will feature lectures by invited high-level speakers, short talks by young and early stage researchers, poster sessions and open discussion periods as well as a forward look panel discussion about future developments.