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Quarter on Statistics and Climate Change
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The Program in Spatial
Statistics and Environmental Sciences (SSES) is sponsoring a
series of events on the role of statistics in climate change
studies during Spring Quarter 2008. These events include seminars
by leading experts in the area, as well as weekly discussion group meetings.
For more information on these events, please e-mail us at sses@stat.osu.edu.
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Seminars
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| "Massive Data Set Analysis for NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder" |
| SPEAKER: Amy
Braverman, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology |
| DATE: Thursday, May 8, 2008 |
TIME: 3:30-4:30PM
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| LOCATION: 18th
Avenue Building (EA), Room 170 |
ABSTRACT:
NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) has been
collecting large quantities of remote sensing data about the vertical
structure of Earth's atmosphere since AIRS was launched aboard the
Aqua spacecraft in mid-2002. These data pose a classic problem in the
analysis of massive data sets: how do we understand the relationships
among fine-scale phenomena within their global context? We answer that
question here by partitioning the data on a coarse spatio-temporal
grid, and estimating the multivariate distribution of the data within
each grid cell. Then, we look for patterns in the evolution of those
distributions as functions of space and time, and ultimately we tie
them back to physical phenomena generating the data sets. Quantifying
this evolution is challenging because the data are high dimensional,
and the distributions are complex. We attack the problem using a
distance between distributions as a measure of similarity among grid
cells' data and therefore as a measure of similarity between the
underlying physical processes. We close with a look at the physical
implications of our findings for climate studies. This represents
joint research with Eric Fetzer, Brian Kahn, and Joao Teixeira.
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| "Statistics and Climate
Change"* |
| SPEAKER: Mark Berliner, Department of
Statistics, The Ohio State University |
| DATE: Thursday, April 3, 2008 |
TIME: 3:30-4:30PM
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| LOCATION: 18th
Avenue Building (EA), Room 170 |
ABSTRACT:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
recently released its Fourth Assessment Report claiming "Warming of
the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations
of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread
melting of snow and ice, and rising mean sea level.... Most of the
observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th
century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic
greenhouse gas concentrations....Discernible human influences now
extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming,
continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes, and wind
patterns." The American Statistical Association has also recently
released a statement endorsing these conclusions of the IPCC. I review
the development of arguments underlying such claims; how these
arguments relate to statistical analysis and the treatment of
uncertainty; and how statisticians can contribute to the issues raised
in climate change studies. I will also present a recent example of a
Bayesian approach to multi-model information processing for developing
climate forecasts. |
| * This seminar is jointly sponsored by the SSES Program
and Ohio State's Climate, Water, and Carbon Program. |
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Discussion Group
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| DATES: Fridays,
April 4, 2008 to May 23, 2008 (inclusive) |
| TIME: 12-1PM |
LOCATION: Cockins Hall
(CH), Room CH 212
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SCHEDULE:
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DATE |
PRESENTERS |
TOPIC |
DISCUSSION PAPER |
| Week 1 |
Friday, Apr 4 |
Emily Kang
Prof. Tao Shi |
Paleoclimatology |
Li, B., Nychka, D., Ammann, C.
(2007). The 'Hockey Stick' and the 1990s: A Statistical
Perspective on Reconstructing Hemispheric
Temperatures. Tellus, 59A, 591-598. |
| Week 2 |
Friday, Apr 11 |
Jenny Brynjarsdottir
Prof. Peter Craigmile |
Paleoclimatology |
Haslett, J., Whiley, M., Bhattacharya, S.,
Salter-Townshend, M., Wilson, S.P., Allen, J.R.M.,
Huntley, B., and Mitchell, F.J.G. (2006). Bayesian
Palaeoclimate Reconstruction. Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society, Series A, 169,
395-438. |
| Week 3 |
Friday, Apr 18 |
Lili Zhuang
Prof. Noel Cressie |
Climate Model Ensembles |
Jun, M., Knutti, R., and Nychka, D. Spatial Analysis
to Quantify Numerical Model Bias and Dependence: How
Many Climate Models Are There? To appear in the Journal of the
American Statistical Association. |
| Week 4 |
Friday, Apr 24 |
Lijia Wei
(Department of Geography) |
Synthesizing More Robust Ice-Core-Derived Sulfate and Nitrate
Aerosol Histories for Improved Modeling of Past Aerosol Forcing |
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| Week 5 |
Friday, May 2 |
Rajib Paul
Prof. Radu Herbei
Prof. Tom Santner |
Climate Model Calibration |
Sanso, B., Forest, C.E., and Zantedeschi, D. (2008).
Inferring Climate System Properties Using a Computer Model (with
discussion). Bayesian Analysis, 3,
1-38. |
| Week 6* |
Friday, May 9 |
Amy Braverman
(Jet Propulsion Laboratory) |
The JPL Climate Change Initiative: Massive Remote Sensing Data Sets for Climate Change Studies |
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| Week 7 |
Friday, May 16 |
Candace Berrett
Prof. Desheng Liu |
Climate Model Ensembles |
Smith, R.L., C. Tebaldi, D. Nychka and Mearns, L.O.
Bayesian Modeling of Uncertainty in Ensembles of
Climate Models. To appear in the Journal of the American
Statistical Association. |
| Week 8 |
Friday, May 23 |
TBD
Prof. Kate Calder |
Climate Change Policy |
Layton, D.F., and Levine, R.A. (2003). How Much Does
the Far Future Matter? A Hierarchical Bayesian
Analysis of the Public's Willingness to Mitigate
Ecological Impacts of Climate Change. Journal of
the American Statistical Association, 98,
533-544. |
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* The discussion group will meet in Cockins Hall (CH)
Room 217 on May 9th. |
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