Announcements, Meetings, News, Funding Opportunities and Jobs postings from US CLIVAR NewsGram.
Author: Anji Seth
Myanna Lahsen Seminar 21 Sept
Where is the Beef?
Climate Change knowledge and communication in Brazil
Myanna Lahsen
Center for Earth System Science
The Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE)
Wednesday 21 September 2016
2:30 – 3:30 pm
AUST 163
Abstract: Skepticism about climate science is often identified as a key obstacle to effective decision making in the U.S. and other countries. Brazil has come to be celebrated as an enlightened counter-example because climate science is largely uncontested, as reflected in analyses of climate coverage in national newspapers and in a series of international surveys performed by the Pew Center and others. However, drawing on extensive analysis of Brazilian climate politics and newspaper coverage of climate change, I reveal a deep disconnect between Brazil’s emissions profile and how climate change and related solutions are defined, a disconnect that obstructs awareness of Brazil’s single most important source of emissions: cattle-raising. During the talk, I will also discuss broader environmental risks generated by agricultural expansion in Brazil’s biodiversity hotspot, the “Cerrado” savanna biome, highlighting how Brazil’s research agendas and mass communications structures bear on the challenge of responding to the threats of resource depletion and global environmental change.
Bio: Myanna Lahsen is Senior Researcher II in the Earth System Science Center at the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE). A Cultural Anthropologist and STS scholar by training, she studies knowledge politics and other socio-cultural dynamics related to global environmental change, environmental sustainability and development. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and fellowship in the United States, including the Jacob K. Javits and EPA ”STAR” fellowships, and two postdoctoral Fellowships, in the Advanced Study Program at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and in the J.F. Kennedy school of Government, respectively. Before assuming her current position in Brazil, she held positions as Science Officer with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, as Research Scientist in CIRES at the University of Colorado and as Lecturer on Environmental Science and Public Policy at Harvard University. She has served on review panels at the U.S. National Science Foundation and been called to participate in Expert Groups advising the United Nations on the dynamics of the science-policy interface and the formation of a global sustainability report. She currently serves as advisor to Nature Climate Change and as Executive Editor of WIREs Climate Change, responsible for the subdomain on The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge.
This event is hosted by the University of Connecticut Atmospheric Sciences Group (ASG) and the Department of Geography.
ENVE 8 Apr: Ecophysiological Controls and Precipitation Seasonality in Amazonia
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SPRING 2016 COLLOQUIUM SERIES
Friday, April 8, 2016 • 12:15 PM • CAST 212
“Ecophysiological Controls and Precipitation Seasonality in Amazonia”
By
Jung-Eun Lee
Assistant Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University
Abstract: It is unclear to what extent seasonal water stress impacts on plant productivity over Amazonia. Using new Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) satellite measurements of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, we show that midday fluorescence varies with water availability, both of which decrease in the dry season over Amazonian regions with substantial dry season length, suggesting a parallel decrease in gross primary production (GPP). Using additional SeaWinds Scatterometer onboard QuikSCAT satellite measurements of canopy water content, we found a concomitant decrease in daily storage of canopy water content within branches and leaves during the dry season, sup- porting our conclusion. The strong relationship between GOSAT and model fluorescence (r2 = 0.79) was obtained using a fixed leaf area index, indicating that GPP changes are more related to environmental conditions than chlorophyll contents over tropical evergreen forests. We have also incorporated equations coupling SIF to photosynthesis in a land surface model, the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Land Model version 4 (NCAR CLM4) to use it as a diagnostic tool for evaluating the calculation of photosynthesis.
12 Feb ENVE/ASG Seminar: Luca Delle Monache (NCAR)
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SPRING 2016 COLLOQUIUM SERIES and ASG
Friday, February 12, 2016 • 12:15 PM • Storrs Hall, Room WW16
“Probabilistic predictions and uncertainty quantification with an analog ensemble”
Luca Delle Monache, Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
Abstract: The analog of a forecast for a given location and time is defined as the observation that corresponds to a past prediction matching selected features of the current forecast. The best analogs form the analog ensemble (AnEn). The AnEn is a general method to generate probabilistic predictions that has been tested successfully for a range of applications including weather predictions, climate downscaling, renewable energy (wind and solar), air quality (ground-level ozone and particulate matter), and hurricane intensity. The recurring features found across different applications are:
- Theabilitytouseahigherresolutionmodelsinceonlyonereal-timedeterministicforecastisneeded to generate an ensemble;
- Noneedforinitialconditionormodelperturbationstrategiestogenerateanensemble;
- Reliableuncertaintyquantification,i.e.,noadditionalensemblecalibrationisrequired;
- Abilitytocapturetheflow-dependenterrorcharacteristics.
- A superior skill in predicting rare events.Examples of AnEn current applications will be shown, and a discussion on how this technique could be implemented for probabilistic predictions of weather parameters over a two-dimensional gridded domain will follow.
Presenter’s Bio:
Luca Delle Monache is the Deputy Science Director of the National Security Applications Program of the Research Applications Laboratory with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado. He earned a Laurea (M.S.) in Mathematics from the University of Rome, Italy (1997), a M.S. in Meteorology from the San Jose State University, San Jose, California (2002), and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (2006). Before joining NCAR he worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His main interests include probabilistic predictions, uncertainty quantification and ensemble design, urban meteorology, mesoscale numerical weather prediction, ensemble data assimilation, boundary layer meteorology, air pollution, inverse and dispersion modeling, and renewable energy prediction and resource assessment.
To access this seminar’s live broadcast or recording please use the following link:
https://mediasite.dl.uconn.edu/Mediasite/Play/107cc29e625744038f830910b0c29a061d
Sponsors: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Engineering Program, Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering and Atmospheric Sciences Group