Earth System Science

The earth as a comprehensive, interactive system.

The Ronald J. Stouffer Symposium

Date: June 6, 2016

Location: GFDL Smagorinsky Room, Princeton NJ, USA

For the last 38 years, Ron Stouffer’s research contributions at GFDL have expanded scientific understanding of the atmosphere, oceans, and climate through high performance supercomputing with mathematical models of the Earth system. Ron’s accomplishments include: the development, along with Suki Manabe, of the first coupled atmosphere-ocean models for global climate warming projections; new understanding of natural modes of climate variability and paleoclimate; and ongoing leadership of both model development within GFDL and community synthesis efforts through the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Ronald J. Stouffer, retired NOAA/GFDL Physical Scientist. Click here for more photos of Ron over the years.

To commemorate Ron Stouffer’s career, we are in the early planning stage to hold a one day Symposium on June 6, 2016 (Monday) at GFDL (draft agenda below). We are planning three forward-looking science sessions. The morning session will focus on scientific talks relating to climate change and community assessments thereof, followed by a panel discussion on the increasing overlap between climate modeling and impact assessments and to what extent can they be merged. The afternoon session will include a range of climate-related talks on regional patterns, variability, sea level rise, the carbon system and other topics on which Ron has demonstrated scientific leadership. The celebration will culminate in a dinner in Ron’s honor.

Agenda

Morning moderator: Karl Taylor – LLNL
9:00 Introduction on Stouffer’s contributions to climate modeling, intercomparison and supercomputing (Anthony Broccoli – RU)
9:25 Diagnostics and Intercomparisons (Veronika Eyring – DLR)
9:50 IPCC Assessments (Gerald Meehl – NCAR)
10:15 Transient versus Equilibrium climate sensitivity (Cath Senior – UKMO – remote)
10:40 Break
11:00 The increasing overlap between climate modeling and impact assessments, and to what extent can they be merged. (Moderator: Alex Hall – UCLA Panel: Michael Alexander – ESRL(Fisheries), Denise Mauzerall – PU(Air quality), Sarah Kapnick – GFDL (Water resources)).
12:15 Lunch
Moderator: Elena Shevliakova – GFDL
1:30 Committed warming and long term response (John Krasting – GFDL)
1:55 Variability and Detection/attribution (Benjamin Santer – LLNL)
2:20 The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: Paleo Aspects, Recent Behavior, and Abrupt Climate Change (Rong Zhang – GFDL)
2:45 Coupled climate-carbon cycle science including CMIP (John Dunne – GFDL)
3:10 Break
Moderator: Isaac Held – GFDL
3:35 Interhemispheric Asymmetry of warming and the Southern Ocean (Joellen Russell – UA)
4:00 Sea Level Rise (Jianjun Yin – UA)
4:25 Paleoclimate (Lori Sentman – GFDL)
4:50 The Future of climate modeling (John Mitchell – UKMO)
5:15 Ron’s thanks – individual versus group science (Ron Stouffer – GFDL alum)
5:40 Appetizers
7:00 Dinner