This is a past event.

EEN/EPSSI joint seminar

Climate Change, Drought and Global Aridification: Understanding Confidence

This talk will focus on one of the sharpest edges of the growing global climate crisis: hydrologic extremes and water security. Special attention will be focused on understanding how to assess and assign confidence estimates to projections of future change.

Biography: Professor Overpeck is an interdisciplinary climate scientist, William B. Stapp Collegiate Professor of Environmental Education and the Samuel A. Graham Dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He also holds appointments in the Departments of Climate and Space Science and Engineering, as well as Earth and Environmental Sciences. He has written 220 published works on climate and the environmental sciences, served as a Working Group 1 Coordinating Lead Author for the Nobel Prize winning IPCC 4th Assessment (2007), and also as a Working Group 2 Lead Author for the IPCC 5th Assessment (2014). Other awards include the US Dept. of Commerce Gold Medal, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Walter Orr Roberts award of the American Meteorological Society, and the Quivira Coalition’s Radical Center Award for his work with rural ranchers and land managers. Overpeck has carried out climate research programs on six continents, focused on understanding drought and megadrought dynamics (and risk) the world over, and has also served as the lead investigator of Climate Assessment for the Southwest and the SW Climate Science Center – two major programs focused on regional climate adaptation. Overpeck recently served on the University of Michigan’s President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, and currently serves on the State of Michigan Governor’s Council on Climate Solutions, as well as the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Energy Commission and Carbon Neutrality Coordinating Committee. He has appeared and testified before Congress multiple times, is a Fellow of AGU and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and tweets about environmental and climate-related issues @GreatLakesPeck.