Coloquio Marie Sklodowska Curie: 'The Science of Climate Change'

The world is warming at a rate faster that has ever been observed in the past. Overwhelmingly scientists are of the opinion that this is largely due to the effect of gases released into the atmosphere by human activities. How can we be sure that this is the case? Does it matter? What can we say about the future?

This talk will look at the scientific evidence for climate change in the context of natural variations and it will discuss how increasing concentrations of “greenhouse gases” create an imbalance in the Earth’s energy budget with impacts on temperature, sea level and weather. It will show how basic physics can be used to construct the computer models which are employed to investigate climate processes and to look at potential future impacts across the world of increasing greenhouse gases. It will go on to consider what needs to be done to reduce GHG emissions for the world to avoid dangerous levels of warming, and where we are heading following the United Nations climate change agreements. 

Joanna Haigh was Co-Director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College from 2014 until her retirement in 2019. For the previous 5 years she was Head of the Department of Physics. Jo's scientific interests include radiative transfer in the atmosphere, climate modelling, radiative forcing of climate change and the influence of solar irradiance variability on climate. 

Los coloquios Marie Sklodowska Curie pretenden acercar a la sociedad los últimos avances científicos y la visión del mundo que surge de ellos, haciendo hincapié en que la ciencia es un bien público que debe ser accesible a todos los ciudadanos. Personalidades de renombre internacional de diferentes campos de la investigación y del mundo de la cultura comparten su experiencia con el público.

Entrada libre hasta completar el aforo.