AOSC Seminar by Dr. Adam Sobel, 11/21/2024
AOSC Seminar
Adam Sobel
Columbia University
Title
Doing usable climate risk science in academia
Abstract
Information on climate risk is increasingly needed for adaptation. The information produced by traditional climate science, as practiced in academia and governments, is generally not quite fit for the purpose, having been generated for some combination of scientific understanding and support of mitigation policy. For adaptation, an additional layer of science is needed on top of (for example) CMIP model output: downscaling, bias correction, uncertainty quantification, impact modeling, and decision support. This additional “climate risk science” (so called here because of the importance of extremes and the inherently probabilistic nature of the information) has been practiced in academia and government, but not in an organized way; the intercomparison and standards that are familiar in other parts of climate science are largely absent here. The private sector has leapt in to fill the gap, but its products are generally expensive, proprietary, and in many cases opaque. The result is a “wild west” situation in which many potential or actual users of the information are confused and adaptation is inhibited. I will argue for a more organized effort to develop usable climate risk science, especially for public sector applications, in academia and government. A few recent research results on hurricane risk under climate change will be used to illustrate specific points.
Bio
Adam Sobel is a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Engineering School. He studies weather and climate, with a focus on extreme weather events and a particular interest in the tropics.
Sobel’s research spans basic and applied prediction and risk assessment, and uses observations, theory, and numerical simulations with models spanning a hierarchy in complexity. In his basic research, he has developed novel methods for diagnosing between turbulent deep convection and large-scale atmospheric dynamics. In his more applied research, with colleagues in both academia, the insurance industry, and nonprofit non-governmental organizations, Sobel has been developing predictive models and data sets to assess the risks to society from tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events in the changing climate.
In addition to being author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles, Sobel has written many op-eds for the mainstream media, as well as a popular science book, Storm Surge (Harper-Collins, 2014) about Hurricane Sandy. Currently he hosts a podcast, Deep Convection, featuring wide-ranging conversations with other climate scientists.
Sobel received a BA in physics and music from Wesleyan in 1989 and a PhD in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998. He has received the Meisinger Award (2010) and Louis J. Battan Author’s Award (2014) from the American Meteorological Society, of which he is a Fellow (2020); the Ascent Award (2014) and Jule Charney Lectureship (2022) from the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union, of which he is also a Union Fellow (2023); and the Lamont-Doherty Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2010).
Contact
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AOSC Seminar
Pre-seminar refreshment: N/A
Seminar: 3:30-4:30pm, Room: ATL 2400(only when in-person)
Meet-the-Speaker: 4:30-5:00pm, Room: ATL 3400(only when in-person) [For AOSC Students only]
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