Mathematics Awareness Month - April 2009

Uncertainty in Climate Predictions by Douglas Nychka, Director of the Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences (IMAGe) and Senior Scientist in the Geophysical Statistics Project (GSP), National Center for Atmospheric Research Nychka talks about the statistics related to the climate, and about dealing with the uncertainty associated with climate models.

Tropical climate variability by David Neelin, Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles Part 1: Tropical climate variability, especially El Niño. Part 2: The complexity of climate models

What individuals and governments can do to help mitigate climate change. by Jon Huntsman, Jr., Governor of Utah

Polar Land Ice by David Holland, Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science (CAOS), Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University Part 1: Some of the basics of land ice. Part 2: In the second half, Holland speaks about the rapid disappearance of land ice in some areas, and the need for new math and science to analyze that disappearance.

How satellites monitor the climate. by Jay Zwally, Ice Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Global climate models by Inez Fung, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Co-Director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment, University of California, Berkeley

Sea Ice in the Global Climate System by Kenneth M. Golden, Department of Mathematics, University of Utah; Elizabeth Hunke, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Cecilia Bitz, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington; and Marika Holland, National Center for Atmospheric Research Part 1: The basics and significance of sea ice. Part 2: The challenges in sea ice research. Part 3: Some of Ken’s adventures doing sea ice research in the Arctic and Antarctic. Part 4: Ken concludes talking about involving undergraduates in sea ice research and the connection between his research and modeling bone porosity and air flow through lungs.