SOMAS (School of Atmospheric and Marine Sciences)
and The Humanities Building, Stony Brook University
Wednesday-Friday, November 12-14, 2008Themes I: Costal Storms: Their Physics, Impacts, Prediction and Future Changes
II: Trust and Distrust between Scientists and the Publc: Case Studies
III: Sustainability, Changing Climates, Changing Minds
Wednesday, November 12th - SoMAS-Endeavor Hall, Room 120 Session I Winter storms: dynamics and predictability of nor'easters in a changing climate
12:00-1:00PM Registration
1:00-1:10PM General Welcome: Minghua Zhang
1:10-120PM Welcome: Provost Eric Kaler
1:20-1:30PM Introductions: Minghua Zhang
1:30-2:30PM Louis Uccellini, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Advancing the Operational Prediction of Rapd Cyclogenesis Abstract
2:30-3:00PM Coffee, posters
3:00-4:00PM Paul Kocin, National Centers for Environmental Prediction
Long Island Snowstorms in a Changing Climate Abstract 4:00-5:00PM Discussion
5:00-6:00PM Social hour, posters, finger food
6:30 Dinner: Jasmine Restaurant (for speakers and sponsors)
Improvements in the operational prediction of rapid cyclogenesis will be reviewed, with emphasis placed on the more recent advancements in observations and forecast models. The use of the global observing system and numerical models have allowed forecasters to extend their predictive capabilities of rapid cyclogenesis out to five days and in some cases to a week or more, even over the large Atlantic and Pacific Ocean basins. An important aspect of these developments is the recent inclusion of “hurricane force winds” in the warning categories for oceanic extratropical storms—a recognition of the increased ability to observe and predict the most intense phase of these storm systems. Even with these advancements, challenges remain to be addressed and predictability issues to be resolved for rapid extratropical cyclogenesis, especially for the most rapid development phase of these storms which is still underforecasted by the operational forecast models.
The authors of Northeast Snowstorms (Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini) both grew up on Long Island in the 1950’s and 1960’s, a period during which Long Island experienced some of its snowiest winters and biggest snowstorms of the past century. This talk will focus on some of the great winter storms that affected Kocin’s and Uccellini’s experience, as well as some of the region's other significant storms, and will address how their prediction has evolved over the years, and how the changing climate may have influenced the occurrence and characteristics of those storms.
Louis W. Uccellini is the Director of the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Springs, MD. Previously, he was the Director of the National Weather Service’s Office of Meteorology; Chief of the National Weather Service’s Meteorological Operations Division; and Section Head for the Mesoscale Analysis and Modeling Section at the Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for Atmospheres. He received his Ph.D. (1977), Masters (1972) and Bachelor of Science (1971), degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Uccellini has published numerous articles and chapters in books on subjects including analysis of severe weather outbreaks, snowstorms, gravity waves, jet streaks, cyclones and the use of satellite data in analysis and modeling applications. He is the co-author of Snowstorms along the Northeastern Coast of the United States: 1955 to 1985, which was published by the American Meteorological Society in 1990; and he authored a chapter in the 1999 AMS publication The Life Cycles of Extratropical Cyclones that provides a historical review of advances in forecasting extratropical cyclones at NCEP. He is also the co-author of a two-volume book: Northeast Snowstorms, published by the American Meteorological Society, now in its second printing. In 2001 he received the U.S. Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award and in 2006 he received the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Rank Award.
Paul Kocin works for the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). He was written Northeast Snowstorms and Snowstorms Along the Northeastern Coast of the United States, co-authored with Louis Uccellini, and appeared on the Weather Channel as Winter Weather Expert between 1999 and 2006.
Thursday, November 13th - SoMAS-Endeavour Hall, Room 120 Session II North Atlantic Hurricans: Past, Present and Future (parallel session)
8:00AM-8:45 Registration
8:40-8:50AM Welcome: Dean David Conover
8:50-9:00 Introductions: Sultan Hameed
9:00-9:45AM Kerry Emanuel, MIT, "Recent Advances in Hurricanes" Abstract
After providing a general introduction to the topic of hurricanes, focusing on their observed behavior and physics, Emanuel will review recent advances in the understanding of hurricanes, including progress in understanding the genesis of hurricanes, the physics behind the rare development of tropical cyclones over land, and what we have come to understand about the interaction between hurricanes and climate change.
9:45-10:30AM Christopher Thorncroft, SUNY Albany
The role of the West African Monsoon on Atlantic tropical cyclone activity Abstract
Chris Thorncroft is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University at Albany. Before that he was a faculty member in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading in the UK, where he also obtained his Ph.D. His research is focused on improving our understanding of the processes that determine the nature and variability of the West African monsoon system, including how this impacts Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. He combines theory with analysis of observations and modeling. He has had leading roles in two field campaigns over West Africa JET2000 in August 2000 and more recently the African Multidisciplinary Monsoon Analysis (AMMA) multi-year field campaign which mainly focused on 2006. He currently chairs the AMMA-THORPEX working group that emphasizes research and operational activities concerned with high impact weather over West Africa and downstream.
Several studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between West African rainfall and tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic at interannual-to-decadal timescales. This is usually interpreted in terms of the large-scale dynamical response to anomalous diabatic heating over the continent. Wet years over West Africa tend to be associated with weakened deep vertical shear in the so-called main development region (MDR) which is conducive to tropical cyclone development. The opposite is the case for dry years. The first part of this presentation will explore the nature of these downstream circulations and will include some analysis on the relative roles of West African rainfall and ENSO on the variability of the shear and tropical cyclone activity. Spatio-temporal variability of tropics-wide vertical shear variability are extracted after separating a 58 year data record into high frequency (HF; periods of 1.5-8 years) and low-frequency (LF; periods greater than 8 years). The results suggest that the HF vertical shear variability over the tropical Atlantic is dominated by ENSO while the multidecadal variability of vertical shear over the tropical Atlantic is linked to atmospheric circulation anomalies forced by multidecadal variability in Sahel rainfall. The results show that global modes of vertical shear and tropical cyclone activity are closely related in the Atlantic but not in the western and eastern Pacific. The second part of this presentation will consider the role played by variability in the nature of the weather systems leaving West Africa. While there is considerable variability in the numbers of intense West African systems over West Africa, this does not have a simple relationship with variability of tropical cyclone activity downstream. However, composite analysis indicates that the weather systems that do eventually become tropical cyclones tend to have a different evolution and structure over the West African continent than those that do not develop.
10:30-11:00AM Coffee, posters
11:00-11:45AM Richard Rotunno, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Factors Controlling the Intensity of Idealized Hurricanes in Numerical Models Abstract
Richard Rotunno received a Ph. D. in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from
Princeton University in 1976. He has spent most of the past 32 years at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where he has been a Senior Scientist since 1989, and Assistant Director of the Microscale and Mesoscale Meteorology Division since 1999. He has worked on the fluid dynamics of atmospheric flows, including tornadoes, rotating thunderstorms, squall lines, hurricanes, polar lows, midlatitude cyclones, fronts, mountain and coastal airflows, and a variety of related problems such as the dynamics of density currents, vortex stability and atmospheric predictability. Through a combination of theory and numerical modeling, his work is directed at the understanding needed to make progress in the forecasting of mesoscale weather phenomena. In 2004 he was the recipient of the American Meteorological Society's Jule G. Charney Award.
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An important goal of theoretical hurricane research is to determine hurricane intensity as a function of given environmental (external) parameters. Paths toward achieving that goal are, however, blocked by several significant obstacles. Chief among those obstacles is that theoretical- and numerical-model determinations of hurricane intensity depend on poorly known internal parameters. This lecture will address recent work on the more significant sensitivities of numerical-model determinations of hurricane intensity to such parameters. Using a newly-developed axisymmetric numerical model, which is designed to conserve mass and energy in saturated conditions, with a single specification of the initial conditions, G. Bryan (NCAR) and Rotunno have found a significant sensitivity of simulated intensity to the assumed turbulence mixing length and terminal velocity of condensate. For relatively small horizontal mixing lengths, numerical solutions produce a hurricane intensity that exceeds the maximum possible according to a well-known analytical model. Rotunno will describe his analysis of the numerical solutions that reveals where the analytical and numerical models diverge in their respective descriptions of the hurricane. That analysis indicates that for larger horizontal mixing lengths, the model hurricane is more nearly in hydrostatic/gradient-wind balance, and for that reason, analytical and numerical models are in closer agreement. Finally, this paper will describe a recent attempt by Rotunno and a group of NCAR researchers to model an idealized hurricane using a three-dimensional model at resolution fine enough for turbulence exchange to be explicitly simulated—obviating the need to specify a mixing length in a turbulence parameterization.
11:45-12:30 Discussion
Session III Building trust between scientists and the public (parallel session)
Humanities 1008 9:00-9:30 Registration
9:30-9:45 Introductions: Robert Crease
9:45-10:30 Glenn Sandiford, University of Illinois
Community Trust and the Superconducting Super Collider: Discussion is a Two-Way Street Abstract 10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-11:45 Gary H. Sanders, Project Manager, Thirty Meter Telescope Project
My Telescope Needs Your Mountain: Why Can't I Use It? Abstract
Gaining the trust of local communities in the siting of Big Science projects is crucial, as affirmed by the site competition for the Superconducting Super Collider in the 1980’s. States that incorporated local public involvement in their proposal development were rewarded with widespread grassroots support. States that had adopted a top-down approach emphasizing public relations encountered strong, well-organized opposition, to the extent that the Department of Energy cited lack of local support as a key factor in rejecting the bid from Illinois, widely considered to be the closest rival of eventual winner Texas. Other factors undoubtedly contributed to this pattern. Nonetheless, while the pursuit of prestigious Big Science facilities might seem eminently rational to (some) scientists and state planners, they should not assume that local communities will share their view of rationality, especially if residents are not given a sense of ownership and involvement in such projects
Glenn Sandiford is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois. A former environment journalist, he and two colleagues are writing an NSF-funded history of the rise and fall of the SSC. He holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning, specializing in environmental history and the history of science.
Gary Sanders is the project manager of the Thirty Meter Telescope project based in Pasadena, California. After a career in experimental high energy physics, he changed fields and went to Caltech where he led the construction of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) that is now searching for the minute fluctuations in space-time emitted by far off violent cosmic events. For the last four years, he has been leading the development of the world's largest telescope planned for construction during the next decade.
The Thirty Meter Telescope project, planned to open the next generation of giant optical telescopes, needs a mountain site with spectacular “seeing.” Two mountains, one in northern Chile, and Mauna Kea in Hawaii, are finalists for selection by TMT. But gaining permission to site on one of these mountains requires the trust and agreement and support of local peoples as well as cultural
acceptance. Historical insults, economic resentment and different visions for the future complicate the dialogue.
11:45-12:30 Discussion
12:30-1:45 Lunch: Jasmine Restaurant (speakers and sponsors)
Session IV: Closing the Gaps: Science, Controversy, Information Propagation and Public Trust (Joint Session)
Humanities 1008
2:00-2:15 Introductions: Edmund Chang
2:15-3:00 Burrell Montz,SUNY Binghampton "Going Coastal: Risk and Vulnerability Along our Shorelines" Abstract
Whether or not climate change is increasing the number or intensity of extreme natural events affecting coastal regions in the United States, losses resulting from these events are increasing. Some of this is due to increased population which puts more people and property at risk. However, some is also due to the increased vulnerability of populations living in these areas—by virtue of, among other factors, their housing, their age, their incomes, and/or their race and ethnicities. Even as coastal areas are changing, the numbers and characteristics of those who are “going coastal” is adding to the potential losses. This analysis tracks spatial, temporal, and socio-political trends that have led to increased risk and vulnerability along America’s shorelines.
Burrell E. Montz (Ph.D., 1980, University of Colorado, Boulder) is Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies and Chair of the Geography Department at Binghamton University. With more than twenty-five years of experience with research in natural hazards, Dr. Montz has published numerous articles, proceedings papers, and book chapters. Her current research centers on various hazard topics including the effectiveness of structural and nonstructural mitigation measures, the flow and use of warning system information, and applications of GIS to understanding vulnerability to multiple hazards.
3:00-3:45PM Keynote LecturePeter Adler Keystone CenterBuilding Trust across the Science-Culture Divide Abstract
Peter Adler, Ph.D., is President of The Keystone Center and the author of Eye of the Storm Leadership (RIS Publications, 2008), Beyond Paradise (Ox Bow Press, 1993), Oxtail Soup (Ox Bow Press, 2000), and co-author of Managing Scientific & Technical Information in Environmental Cases (1999) and Building Trust (National Policy Consensus Center, 2002).
Science and culture offer two different ways of "knowing." Occasionally, they collide. Conflict erupts, conversation founders, and talks collapse. Good strategies exist for bridging the gulf and building trust. They aren't foolproof, but various forms of “dialogue by design” can help create disciplined and productive conversation that uses both heart and mind to work out differences of opinion.
3:45-4:00PM Coffee break
Humanities 1006 4:00-4:10 Welcome: Ann Kaplan
4:10-4:20 Introduction: Malcolm Bowman
4:20-5:20 Keynote Lecture: Carl Safina, Blue Ocean Institute, "Bringing Public Trust to the Science: WHy Do Scientists Cling Stubbornly to Explaining Data Rather than Telling the Story?"
Carl Safina, President of the Blue Ocean Institute, is the author of more than 100 articles and three books, including the award-winning Song for the Blue Ocean, Eye of the Albatross, and the most recent Voyage of the Turtle. In the 1990’s he helped lead campaigns to ban high-seas driftnets, re-write federal fisheries law in the U.S., work toward international conservation of tunas, sharks, and other fishes, and achieve passage of a United Nations global fisheries treaty. He is an adjunct full professor at Stony Brook University/a>
5:20-6:00 Discussion
Session V: Joint dinner session Thinking Globally, Acting Locally $25.00 per person non-speaker, non-sponsor chargeEmail Dinner Registration here 6:00-6:45 reception
6:45-7:00 Introduction: John Lutterbie
7:00-9:00 Dinner Speaker: Patti Wood, Co-founder, Grassroots Environmental Education How Green is my Town? Local Leadership on Climate Change, Sustainability and Environmental Health.
Patricia Wood is the Executive Director and co-founder of Grassroots Environmental Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about the relationship between environmental exposures and human health risks. She lectures on the environment and related health issues at Adelphi University’s School of Nursing and Department of Chemistry and is on the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board for Environmental Studies. Ms. Wood has worked closely with the New York State Department of Health producing public information materials on subjects as diverse as West Nile virus and pediatric and adolescent health. She serves on the governor’s Advisory Council on Sustainability and Green Procurement. She co-produced the documentary film Our Children at Risk, which explores the latest scientific research linking environmental toxins to children's health problems, and features interviews with leading medical experts and researchers in this rapidly developing health field. She is the author of “The ChildSafe Guidelines” and “The ChildSafe School,” which promote and provide a framework for a comprehensive approach to reducing environmental toxins in schools. Ms. Wood is a co-creator of the web-based initiative, “How Green is My Town?” which addresses climate change, sustainability and environmental toxins on a local level.
Friday, November 14th Humanities 1006 Session VI: Climate Change: Science and Policy
9:00-9:30 Registration
9:30-9:45 Introductions: Ann Kaplan
9:45-10:45 Keynote Lecture Kerry Emanuel, "Hurricanes and Climate Change" Abstract
Hurricanes are among the deadliest and most destructive of all natural disasters. After discussing the socioeconomics of hurricanes, Emanuel will review evidence, both theoretical and observational, for the influence of man-made climate change on hurricane power as well as model-based projections of future changes in storm activity. The talk will conclude with new research showing a possible feedback of global hurricane activity on climate itself.
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 Scientific panel with Kerry Emanuel, Carl Safina, Jeff Waistreicher (Eastern Regional Headquarters, National Weather Service, Stephen Leatherman (International Hurricane Research Center), Alan Belensz (New York Department of Environmental Conservation) and Stony Brook Scientists
Kerry Emanuel is a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been on the faculty since 1981, after spending three years as a faculty member at UCLA. Professor Emanuel's research interests focus on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and two books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, recently released by Oxford University Press and aimed at a general audience, and What We Know about Climate Change, published by MIT Press.
Stephen Leatherman earned his Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia in 1976. Since 1997, he has been the Director of the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University in Miami. His major research foci are coastal erosion, storm impacts, and the effects of sea level rise. Dr. Leatherman was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Post-Storm Disaster Field Team for many years. More recently, he served as the National Academy of Sciences Review Coordinator for the $19.7 million IPET Report on New Orleans Flood Disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina. He heads the Florida Hurricane Alliance, which focuses on improving preparedness awareness and damage mitigation. He has authored 16 books and more than 200 refereed journal articles and technical reports. He is a member of the editorial board of Natural Hazards and the Journal of Coastal Research. He has provided expert testimony to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives committees ten times during the past decade. He was Chair of the National Panel to Evaluate Coastal Erosion Hazards for the Federal Emergency Management Agency as mandated by the U.S. Congress. He has given hundreds of invited talks at professional conferences and public workshops. Dr. Leatherman is the Principal Investigator of the recently awarded $10 million grant from the State of Florida for the “Center of Excellence for Hurricane Damage Mitigation & Product Development.”
Malcolm Bowman is Professor of Physical Oceanography and Distinguished Service Professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees (hons.) in physics and mathematics from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and his Ph.D. in engineering physics from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He is the leader of the Stony Brook Storm Surge Research Group, which develops and tests modern coupled meteorological-ocean models to predict coastal surges and flooding from extreme weather events including nor’easters, hurricanes and tsunamis. Of particular interest is the increasing threat to life and property in the New York Metropolitan area and Long Island in an era of global climate change and rising sea level. Dr. Bowman was also the Founding Head of the School of Environmental and Marine Sciences at Auckland University in New Zealand. He was recently appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, whose role is to advise the Mayor on the threats of climate change and rising sea level to the City’s infrastructure and the steps needed to protect the City and the security of its residents.
and
Brian Colle. Panel moderated by Malcolm Bowman
Dr. Brian A. Colle is an Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science at
Stony Brook University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Atmospheric
Sciences at the University of Washington in 1994 and 1997, respectively.
Dr. Colle serves as an Editor for the American Meteorological Society
(AMS) journal "Weather and Forecasting." In 2000 he was awarded a Young
Investigator's Award by the Office of Naval Research, and in 2007 he won
the AMS Editor's Award for the journal "Monthly Weather Review." His
research expertise is in various areas of coastal meteorology and
numerical weather prediction.
12:30-1:45 Lunch: Jasmine Restaurant (for speakers and sponsors)
Session VII: Climate Change and the Public Trust/Distrust
>Humanities 1006
2:00-2:15 Introduction: Robert Crease
2:15-3:15 Templeton Lecture: Spencer R. Weart, Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics,
“Warm Weather and Heated Debate: A Short History of Beliefs about Global Warming.”Abstract
In the 1930’s, people began to notice that the weather was getting warmer. Few believed this had anything to do with the old, discredited theory that emissions from burning coal and oil would cause a global warming. The balance of nature was expected to maintain itself, whatever humans did. Views began to change in the 1960’s, driven by new theories and data and a growing awareness of the fragility of global ecosystems. But scientists were quick to admit they knew too little to make solid predictions about climate. In the 1980’s, improved computer models and studies of ancient climates convinced many experts that warming might pose a serious risk. Some warned governments and the public it was time to consider action, but the discussion became enmeshed in fierce political arguments over environmentalism, regulation and taxes. The world’s governments devised a novel mechanism to coordinate scientific advice, and by 2001 they were told that there is a large risk of grave harm. The public remained divided on whether to trust this advice. Should society transform itself, based only on theories and evidence that nobody but expert scientists could understand?
Spencer R. Weart received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Physics and Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1968. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Cal Tech, publishing papers in leading scientific journals. In 1971 he began graduate work in history at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 1974 he became Director of the Center for the History of Physics. He has written or co-edited nine books, including Nuclear Fear: A History of Images and The Discovery of Global Warming.
3:15-3:30 Coffee Break and Introduction by Jackie Reich
3:30-3:45 Introduction by Jacqueline Reich
3:45-4:45 Provost Lecture (co-sponsored by HISB): Heidi Cullen, Global Institute
Seeing the Climate, Believing the Change Abstract 4:45-6:00PM Closing Wine and Cheese Reception: Humanities 1008
Seeing the Climate, Believing the Change
Abstract
If seeing is believing, then how do you show people this phenomenon called climate change? And how do you prove that recent extreme events may be partially a result of global warming? This talk will explore the difficulties of communicating the science of climate change and look at the current state of public perception. Beginning with a brief history lesson, this talk will provide an overview of past, present, and future climate change. This talk will also reflect on the need to improve our ability to visualize climate change as well as provide examples of the energy infrastructure changes we need to solve the problem of global warming.
Heidi Cullen is the climate expert at The Weather Channel, where she reports on climate, energy policy and the environment. She is also a senior research scientist with Climate Central, a think tank headquartered in Princeton, NJ dedicated to providing the public and policy makers with the latest peer-reviewed information on global climate change. Dr. Cullen’s program Forecast Earth is the first weekly television series to focus on issues related to climate change and the environment. Before joining The Weather Channel, Dr. Cullen was a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. She received a bachelor's degree in engineering/operations research from Columbia University and a doctorate in climatology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
Questions? Call Ann Berrios or Olivia Mattis The Humanities Institute 631 632 9983 (Ann) 631 632 9957 (Olivia).
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