Hill Heat

Speaker: Peter Gleick

Title: An update on the vulnerability of U.S. water resources to climate change: From the Mississippi River floods to growing shortages in the West

The scientific evidence supporting growing impacts of human-induced climate change on U.S. water resources continues to strengthen. Dr. Peter Gleick, one of the nation’s leading experts on climate and water, will discuss recent reports on increased precipitation intensity in North America, the Mississippi River flood events, the new Department of Interior assessment of climate and western river basins, and efforts to prepare for climate and water risks facing cities, farmers, and natural systems. He will also explore some of the adverse implications of recent budget decisions for emergency preparedness and warning systems, weather forecasting, military preparedness, and national response to extreme events.

AMS Career Fair, Sunday–Tuesday; Exhibit Hall 4E: (Check program for times): A great way for employers and job seekers to find each other.

Daily Weather Briefings, Monday–Thursday, 7:30–8:00 A.M. and 12:45–1:15 P.M.; Room 607: Compliments of the University of Washington and the National Weather Service.

Sixth Annual Weather Video Preview Theater, Monday–Thursday, 8:00 A.M.–5:30 P.M.; Room 303: Relax and watch some great videos. Then go to the AMS Resource Center and pick up your favorites.

Spouses’ Coffee, Monday-Wednesday, 9:00–11:00 A.M. Seattle Sheraton, Madrona Room: Spouses and guests are invited to meet and to renew acquaintances.

Meet the President, Tuesday–Thursday, 25–27 January; Room 601: AMS President Peggy LeMone invites you to stop by and chat on Tuesday (3:00–3:30 P.M.), Wednesday (10:00–10:30 A.M.), and Thursday (3:00–3:30 P.M.).

Book Signings, AMS Resource Center, Exhibit Hall 4E: This year you can peruse AMS Books in two locations: the Resource Center Exhibit Hall 4E, and at the AMS Publications booth along Publisher’s Row in the main Exhibit Hall (booth 120). Sales and signings will take place at the Resource Center, and this years’ signing authors will include Louis Uccellini, David Schultz, Robert Henson, Richard Somerville, and economists Kevin Simmons and Dan Sutter, who authored AMS’s newest release, “Economic and Societal Impacts of Tornadoes.”

AMS Exhibit Program, Monday–Thursday; Exhibit Hall 4AB: (Check the program for times): The AMS Annual Meeting is the host to the largest exhibit program anywhere in the atmospheric, oceanic, and related sciences.

Seattle, Washington

This event will focus on the impacts to communities of rising sea levels along the coast. An international audience will exchange information about vulnerability assessments, tools, and methodologies that are being used by coastal communities to understand and reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards and to sustain their way of life and the ecosystem habitats and services on which they depend.

A panel of scientific experts will participate in a national teleconference on Thursday, November 17 to discuss the dramatic developments in climate change during 2010. Reports from leading scientists, record global temperatures, extreme weather events and exonerations of scientists, depicted in a timeline linked here, were largely overshadowed by the BP oil spill and the political debate over climate and energy legislation.

The discussion will feature leading climate scientists including:

• Michael Mann, Ph.D.just returning from the Arctic. Dr. Mann was falsely accused of professional misconduct by climate change deniers and has been completely exonerated by independent panels. He received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. He was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report, and has served as chair for the National Academy of Sciences ‘Frontiers of Science’. He has received the outstanding publication award from NOAA, and in 2002 was selected as one of the 50 leading visionaries in science and technology by Scientific American. He is author of more than 120 peer-reviewed and edited publications, and recently co-authored the book “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming” with colleague Lee Kump.

• Greg Holland, Ph.D. will be calling in from La Reunion in the South Indian OceanDr. Holland is the Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. He has several areas of research interests including hurricanes and tropical meteorology, and unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs). His publications have included major contributions to six textbooks and forecast manuals, together with over 100 research papers in atmospheric sciences and UAVs.

• Mark C. Serreze, Ph.D., Director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Serreze,is also a research associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). He studies Arctic climate, and the causes and global implications of climate change in the Arctic. Serreze is well known for his research on the declining sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean. He has has authored more than 90 scientific publications, including an award-winning textbook, The Arctic Climate System, which he co-wrote with former NSIDC director Roger Barry.

To participate in this teleconference call, callers should dial 1.800.434.1335. The conference code is: 529973# Please tell the operator that you are seeking the “2010 Year in Review” conference call.

Note: This call is for media only, and will include a question and answer session for journalists.

Panel I

• Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences
• Dr. Heidi M. Cullen, CEO and Director of Communications, Climate Central
• Dr. Gerald A. Meehl, Senior Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Panel II

• Dr. Richard B. Alley, Evan Pugh Professor, Department of Geosciences and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University
• Dr. Richard A. Feely, Senior Scientist, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, NOAA
• Dr. Benjamin D. Santer, Atmospheric Scientist, Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato Institute

Panel III

• Jim Lopez, Senior Adviser to the Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• William Geer, Director of the Center for Western Lands, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
• Rear Admiral David W. Titley, Senior Adviser to the Deputy Secretary, Oceanographer and Navigator of the U.S. Navy
• Dr. Judith Curry, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to a briefing on black carbon, a component of soot, a leading cause of mortality in the developing world, and a contributor to global climate change. The largest sources of black carbon emissions are diesel engines, residential heating and cooking, and open burning of agricultural lands and forests. Black carbon contributes to climate change in two basic ways: by absorbing sunlight in the atmosphere and, subsequently, by falling from the atmosphere onto snow and ice - causing these normally-reflective surfaces to absorb more heat and melt more quickly. Biomass burned in open fires and crude cooking stoves also leads to extremely high individual exposures to smoke - of which black carbon is a major component—and is a serious health threat for women and children in the developing world. This briefing will provide an overview of how black carbon impacts public health and the climate (and how the effects vary regionally) as well as technologies, current initiatives, and policy opportunities to reduce these emissions from cookstoves, the transportation sector, and forestry and agriculture. Speakers for this event include:

• Ben DeAngelo, Senior Analyst for Climate Change Science and Policy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Co-chair, Task Force on Short-Lived Climate Forcers, Arctic Council
• Conrad Schneider, Advocacy Director, Clean Air Task Force
• Jacob Moss, Senior Advisor, Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (and informal technical advisor to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves)

Black carbon is a significant contributor to climate change, and yet it remains in the atmosphere for only days at a time (compared to more than 100 years for carbon dioxide). According to the World Health Organization, indoor air pollution from burning solid fuel is responsible for 1.6 million deaths annually, and is one of the fourth worst overall health risk factors in poor countries. Many measures to reduce black carbon emissions have been called “no regrets” strategies due to their co-benefits for climate change mitigation and improved public health. In addition, some black carbon reduction strategies also reduce ozone precursors and methane, magnifying the health and climate benefits even further.

Agriculture will be one of the industries most affected by climate change. Changing rainfall patterns and intensities, air temperatures, and cropping seasons will require the development of new, adapted agricultural systems. On June 16th, experts on climate modeling, cropping systems, crop breeding, and agriculture and natural resource economics will present information about how agriculture can adapt to a changing climate.

Speakers

• Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist; NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Dr. Cesar Izaurralde, Laboratory Fellow; Joint Global Change Research Institute
• Dr. Paul Gepts, Professor of Agronomy and Geneticist; U.C. Davis
• Dr. Gerald Nelson, Senior Research Fellow; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Agronomy, Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

For questions or to RSVP please contact Phillip Chalker at pchalker@aaas.org or 202-326-6789.

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. She was a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report observed changes chapter, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.

Dr. Cesar Izaurralde is a laboratory fellow at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a collaboration of the University of Maryland with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He is also an adjunct professor in the departments of Geography and the Natural Resource Sciences and Landscape Architecture. Dr. Izaurralde is a soil scientist with more than 30 years of research experience in agronomy, soil science, and ecosystem modeling. His current research focuses in the areas of modeling the impacts of climate change and variability on terrestrial ecosystems and water resources and carbon sequestration in and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils. Before joining PNNL in 1997, Dr. Izaurralde served as Chair of Resource Conservation in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, Canada. In his native Argentina, he studied at and later joined the Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias at Universidad Nacional de Cardoba. Dr. Izaurralde is Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.

Dr. Paul Gepts is professor of agronomy in the Department of Agronomy and Range Science at the University of California, Davis. His research and teaching program focuses on the evolution of plants under domestication and relies on a combination of genetic and genomic analyses, coupled with field work in centers of crop domestication, principally Latin America and Africa. Recent research conducted in Mexico has emphasized gene flow between wild and domesticated Phaseolus beans. He has taught courses on crop germplasm in Argentina and Italy, is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Agronomy, has published some 70 research papers and 40 review papers or book chapters, and has edited one book. Dr. Gepts was a member of an Ecological Society of America (ESA) task force that wrote an ESA position paper, Genetically Engineered Organisms and the Environment: Current Status and Recommendations. He co-authored a background chapter assessing the effects of transgenic maize on maize diversity in Mexico for the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation.

Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Nelson is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He is an agricultural economist with over 30 years of professional and research experience in the areas of agriculture, policy analysis, land use and climate change. As co-leader of IFPRI’s global change program, he is responsible for developing IFPRI’s research in climate change modeling and spatially explicit assessments of potential adaptation and mitigation programs and policies. His previous professional activities includes leading the drivers of ecosystem services efforts of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, undertaking research that combines biophysical and socioeconomic data in quantitative, spatially-explicit modeling of the determinants of land use change, and understanding the effects of agricultural, trade and macroeconomic policies on agriculture and land use. Before joining IFPRI, Dr. Nelson was a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1985-2008) and an Agricultural Development Council specialist at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1982.

Climate scientists have long projected that human-induced global warming would make spring arrive earlier than normal, and it is – about 10 days earlier so far. On Tuesday, April 20, a group of scientists will discuss the ramifications for plants and animals across the country.

• Melanie Fitzpatrick, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, will moderate.

• Jake Weltzin, the executive director of the U.S. National Phenology Network and an ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, has found that an earlier spring creates “mismatches” for animals and plants that depend on each other. For example, it’s critical for butterflies to lay their eggs on the new leaves of certain plants. But many of these plants are emerging from dormancy earlier than normal, and butterflies’ reproductive cycles have not adjusted.

• Charles Davis, an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University, recently discovered that invasive, nonnative plants in Concord, Massachusetts, that flower earlier are the “winners” in climate change. Using data taken by Henry David Thoreau, he found that native plants, such as lilacs, orchids and dogwoods, have maintained their historic flowering schedule and are disappearing from the woods around Walden Pond. His findings likely extend to all of New England.

• Anthony Westerling, an assistant professor of environmental engineering and geography at the University of California-Merced, has discovered that rising temperatures combined with early snowmelt are contributing to large forest fires in Western states.

• Erik Beever, a wildlife biologist, has been studying the pika, a rabbit-like mammal that lives in 10 Western states. He recently published a paper that found that the pikas’ mountain habitat is shrinking. He says the species may be an early-warming indicator of how alpine species will respond to global warming.

Call 866-282-2803 and provide the operator with the password: “spring climate change.”

Please join USCAN for a telephone briefing on Monday, April 19, from 2-3pm Eastern to hear about what the climate community to doing to defend against the attacks on climate science and how you can get involved. We will be briefed by:

Leslie Aun, World Wildlife Fund. Leslie will highlight the work of the Project on Climate Science, a non-partisan public-education initiative on climate science, committed to collecting and disseminating high-quality scientific research and information so that individuals, the media, and lawmakers can make well-informed and responsible decisions about how to address climate change.

Kert Davies, Greenpeace. Kert will discuss two recent Greenpeace reports, Dealing in Doubt a chronology of the 20 year campaign targeting climate science and Koch Industries: Secretly funding the denial machine.

Union of Concerned Scientists. A representative from UCS will discuss their “Weight of the Evidence Campaign” an effort to mobilize climate scientists across the country to reclaim the debate on global warming.

Briefing will be followed by Q and A.

To join the tele-briefing call: (605) 475-4825, Participant Access Code: 866886#

This briefing will explore public perceptions of climate change, scientific understanding, and the current political landscape. Our goal is to identify areas where these three perspectives reinforce each other and where they diverge in order to: 1) better understand the challenges and opportunities policy-makers face, 2) identify remaining needs that, if met, could help society most effectively manage risks, and 3) explore opportunities to improve communication among policy-makers, scientists, and the public.

Speakers:

• Norman J. Ornstein, Ph.D. Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
• Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D. Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Department of Geosciences and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
• Jon A. Krosnick, Ph.D. Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Communication, Stanford University

Moderator:

• Paul Higgins, Ph.D. Senior Policy Fellow, American Meteorological Society

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Norman Ornstein is a long-time observer of Congress and politics. He writes a weekly column for Roll Call and is an election analyst for CBS News. He serves as codirector of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and participates in AEI’s Election Watch series. He also serves as a senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission. Mr. Ornstein led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. His many books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (AEI Press, 2000); the coauthored The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Oxford University Press, 2006); and, most recently, Vital Statistics on Congress 2008 (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), also coauthored.

Michael Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also the Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) at the Woodrow Wilson School. He joined the Princeton faculty in 2002 after more than two decades with the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-governmental environmental organization, where he served as chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program. Oppenheimer is a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, serving most recently as a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and is now a coordinating lead author of an upcoming IPCC Special Report covering climate extremes and disasters. He serves on the US National Academies Board on Energy and Environmental Systems. He is also a science advisor to the Environmental Defense Fund. His interests include science and policy of the atmosphere, particularly climate change and its impacts. Much of his research aims to understand the potential for “dangerous” outcomes of increasing levels of greenhouse gases by exploring the effects of global warming on ecosystems such as coral reefs, on the ice sheets and sea level, and on patterns of human migration. Oppenheimer is the author of more than 100 articles published in professional journals and is co-author (with Robert H. Boyle) of a 1990 book, Dead Heat: The Race Against The Greenhouse Effect. He received his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago.

Jon A. Krosnick is Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of communication, political science, and psychology at Stanford University.

A leading international authority on questionnaire design and survey research methods, Professor Krosnick has taught courses for professionals on survey methods for 25 years around the world and has served as a methodology consultant to government agencies, commercial firms, and academic scholars. His books include “Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis” and “The Handbook of Questionnaire Design” (forthcoming, Oxford University Press), which reviews 100 years of research on how different ways of asking questions can yield different answers from survey respondents and on how to design questions to measure most accurately. His recent research has focused on how other aspects of survey methodology (e.g., collecting data by interviewing face-to-face vs. by telephone or on paper questionnaires) can be optimized to maximize accuracy.

Dr. Krosnick is also a world-recognized expert on the psychology of attitudes, especially in the area of politics. He is co-principal investigator of the American National Election Study, the nation’s preeminent academic research project exploring voter decision-making and political campaign effects. For 30 years, Dr. Krosnick has studied how the American public’s political attitudes are formed, change, and shape thinking and action. His publication explore the causes of people decisions about whether to vote, for whom to vote, whether to approve of the President’s performance, whether to take action to influence government policy-making on a specific issue, and much more.

Dr. Krosnick’s scholarship has been recognized with the Phillip Brickman Memorial Prize, the Pi Sigma Alpha Award, the Erik Erikson Early Career Award for Excellence and Creativity, a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and membership as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As an expert witness in court, he has testified evaluating the quality of surveys presented as evidence by opposing counsel and has conducted original survey research to inform courts in cases involving unreimbursed expenses, uncompensated overtime work, exempt/non-exempt misclassification, patent/trademark violation, health effects of accidents, consequences of being misinformed about the results of standardized academic tests, economic valuation of environmental damage, change of venue motions, and other topics.

At Stanford, Dr. Krosnick directs the Political Psychology Research Group (PPRG). PPRG is a cross-disciplinary team of scholars who conduct empirical studies of the psychology of political behavior and studies seeking to optimize research methodology for studying political psychology. The group’s studies employ a wide range of research methods, including surveys, experiments, and content analysis, and the group often conducts collaborative research studies with leading news media organizations, including ABC News, The Associated Press, the Washington Post, and Time Magazine. Support for the group’s work has come from U.S. Government agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics), private foundations (e.g., the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), and Institutes at Stanford (e.g., the Woods Institute for the Environment). Dr. Krosnick also directs the Summer Institute in Political Psychology, an annual event that brings 60 students and professions from around the world to Stanford for intensive training in political psychology theory and methods.

In his spare time, Dr. Krosnick plays drums with a contemporary jazz group called Charged Particles that has released two CD’s internationally and tours across the U.S. and abroad (www.chargedparticles.com).