Archimedes Lecture 2019
Modelling the climate system to understand the human role in recent climate change with Professor David Karoly, NESP Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub, CSIRO
Abstract
Climate change is a topic of political and media debate but its scientific basis is clear. Mathematics is an important part of the foundations needed for building models of the global climate system. It is also key to the evaluation of the simulations from global climate models against observed climate variations over the last hundred years. Finally, it is vital for assessing and quantifying the possible magnitude of any human-caused or natural factors affecting climate change over the same period, and estimating future climate change and its uncertainties.
This talk will give a brief overview of approaches for modelling the global climate system and then how such models are used for the attribution of observed recent climate change to human or natural causes, or both.
About the Speaker
David Karoly is Leader of the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, based in CSIRO. He is also an honorary Professor at the University of Melbourne. He is an internationally recognised expert on climate change and climate variability.
Professor Karoly is a member of the National Climate Science Advisory Committee. During 2012-2017, he was a member of the Climate Change Authority, which provides advice to the Australian government on responding to climate change, including targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He was involved in the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, 2007 and 2014 in several different roles. He was awarded the 2015 Royal Society of Victoria Medal for Scientific Excellence in Earth Sciences.
From 2007 to February 2018, David Karoly was Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Melbourne and in the A.R.C. Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. From 2003 to 2007, he held the Williams Chair in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. During 2001 and 2002, he was Head of the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University.