Download Assessing Scientific Knowledge about Climate Change

NZCCRI Seminar Series
Assessing Scientific Knowledge about Climate Change
Speaker: Dr David Wratt
Director, NZ Climate Change Centre; Chief Scientist
(Climate), NIWA; Adjunct Professor, Climate Change
Research Institute, VUW.
Work has now begun on the IPCC's Fifth Assessment, due for completion in
2014. This presentation will summarise significant findings from the IPCC's
Fourth Assessment completed in 2006 followed by a discussion of some areas
of active scientific interest and research since 2006, including polar ice sheets
and sea level rise, ocean acidification and its impacts, geoengineering, and
ways of accounting for non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases ("metrics"). Key
results from the IPCC's 2010 Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and
Climate Change Mitigation will be described.
The final part of the presentation will address the Fifth Assessment, including
an outline of report preparation and review procedures. The "Representative
Concentration Pathway" (RCP) approach to scenarios will also be discussed,
including some initial climate projections based on them. The assessment and
review timetable will be outlined, including opportunities for input through the
expert review process, and publication deadlines which must be met in order
for new research studies to be considered in the assessment.
Date: Thursday 6 October 2011
Time: 12 – 1pm
Venue: Cotton Building 304, Kelburn Campus, VUW
Dr David Wratt is Chief Scientist, Climate, at New Zealand's National Institute
of Water & Atmospheric Research, Director of the New Zealand Climate
Change Centre, and an Adjunct Professor in the Climate Change Research
Institute at Victoria University. David has a PhD in Atmospheric Physics and has
worked in the USA, Australia and New Zealand on climate and meteorology. He
is a Companion of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a member of the
Bureau of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.