David Karoly brings his caring, sharing climate change knowledge to Bendigo

D

avid Karoly cares about helping people understand the complications and implications of climate change.

The Professor of Atmospheric Science, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, willingly always shares his knowledge and understanding of climate change with people throughout Victoria.

Professor David Karoly - always
 ready to share his knowledge.

And later this year he will again share his knowledge at this year’s annual G S Watson Annual Lecture at Bendigo’s La Trobe University.

The free lecture, entitled, “Signal and noise, evidence and misinformation about climate change”, is on Wednesday, September 23, at 4:30 pm. It’s planned to end an hour later.

Promoting the lecture, or “talk” as Prof Karoly prefers to describe it, the university says:

“Despite consensus support from more than 120 national governments for the conclusions about climate change in the latest international assessment, the science of climate change appears to be hotly debated in the Australian media and even by some politicians.

“This talk will assess evidence and misinformation on observed climate change in the context of separating a climate change signal from the noise of natural climate variability. It will consider a range of space and time scales and several different variables. It will also consider common approaches for maximising any climate change signal, as well as alternative approaches for enhancing natural variability.

“Understanding signal and noise helps to explain some of the different perspectives on climate change science, including much of the misinformation,” it says on its website.

Professor Karoly is Professor of Atmospheric Science in the School of Earth Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate SystemScience at the University of Melbourne.

He is an internationally recognised expert on climate change and climate variability, including greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and interannual climate variations due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

Professor Karoly is a member of the Climate Change Authority, which provides advice to the Australian government on responding to climate change, including targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

He was a Review Editor for the chapter "Australasia" in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability". He is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

Professor Karoly joined the School of Earth Sciences in May 2007 as an ARC Federation Fellow funded by the Australian government. From 2003, he held the Williams Chair in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. During 2001-2002, he was Professor of Meteorology and Head of the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University.

The free event, to be held in Circular Lecture Theatre, La Trobe University, Bendigo campus is organized by the University’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the Deputy Head is Dr Simon Smith.