From Stanford’s News Service, comes this hyper PR. Red mine. In case anybody wants to go or watch, there will be a live feed.
Stanford climate scientist to discuss state of climate science, coming risks
WHO: Chris Field, professor of interdisciplinary environmental studies at Stanford University and co-chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Working Group II.
WHAT: The world is staring down the barrel of climate change that is faster than at any time in the last 65 million years, says climate expert Chris Field. He will speak on the topic.
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 14, 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. CST.
WHERE: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, Hyatt Regency, Grand Ballroom B, 151 E. Wacker Dr., Chicago.
Field will discuss “Research Challenges in Managed and Natural Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change” as part of the “Research Challenges in Climate Change: What’s New and Where Are We Going?” symposium.
Field will also take part in a related news briefing on Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. CST in the Vevey 3 Room of AAAS Newsroom Headquarters in the Swissôtel, 323 East Upper Wacker Dr. The briefing will be streamed live on EurekAlert.org.
In a talk based on a paper he co-authored with Stanford Associate Professor of Environmental Earth System Science Noah Diffenbaugh, Field will describe what analysis of 27 climate models revealed about the pace of climate change and what risks and emerging challenges we should expect.
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“Although the dramatic climate disruptions of the last glacial period have received considerable attention, relatively little has been directed toward climate variability in the Holocene (11,500 cal yr B.P. to the present). Examination of ∼50 globally distributed paleoclimate records reveals as many as six periods of significant rapid climate change during the time periods 9000–8000, 6000–5000, 4200–3800, 3500–2500, 1200–1000, and 600–150 cal yr B.P. Most of the climate change events in these globally distributed records are characterized by polar cooling, tropical aridity, and major atmospheric circulation changes, although in the most recent interval (600–150 cal yr B.P.), polar cooling was accompanied by increased moisture in some parts of the tropics. Several intervals coincide with major disruptions of civilization, illustrating the human significance of Holocene climate variability.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589404000870