PCIC Participation in the WCRP Open Science Conference

PCIC staff will be among the hundreds of climate scientists gathering in Denver, Colorado for the World Climate Research Programme's Open Science Conference October 24-28, 2011.

Titled "Climate Research in Service to Society", the conference will bring together scientists from about 70 countries to discuss the latest findings on climate and identify pressing scientific questions and challenges. Among the major topics for discussion is the possibility of links between climate change and extreme weather events, including the extent of human influence on the frequency of occurrence for extreme climate and weather.

PCIC Director Francis Zwiers will be presenting a poster "Understanding and Characterizing Past, Present and Future Climate Extremes Through Observations and Model Simulations" and leading a team of convenors during one of the conference's Parallel Sessions, "Detecting, Understanding and Predicting Extreme Climate Events".

PCIC Hydrologist Arelia Werner will be presenting a poster titled "Water Resources and the Hydrological Cycle Over Land" and also acting as a rapporteur assisting in the preparation of written summaries on the key messages emerging from the various sessions which provide valuable input for the conference's concluding panel discussion.

The conference's final plenary session is devoted to a discussion on the future of the WCRP and will introduce a number of community discussion papers intended to stimulate dialogue and development in this area. One of these community papers is co-authored by Zwiers and several other prominent climate scientists, titled "Community Paper on Climate Extremes: Challenges in Estimating and Understanding Recent Changes in the Frequency and Intensity of Extreme Climate and Weather Events."

WCRP is sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, the International Council for Science, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These organizations serve more than 180 countries worldwide and are committed to providing the best available scientific knowledge as a solid foundation for sustainable development.