Tuesday 11 December 2018, 2.30–3.30 pm (AEDT)
Overview
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment process results in one of the most rigorous assessments of climate change in the world. Thousands of experts from around the world participate in the IPCC assessment process by synthesising the most recent developments in climate science, adaptation, vulnerability and mitigation. IPCC assessments and special reports have a strong influence in global negotiations and agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. 195 countries, including Australia, are members of the IPCC.
Along with comprehensive assessments in 1990, 1996, 2001, 2007 and 2013, the IPCC has issued a number of methodology reports, technical papers and special reports assessing specific impacts of climate change. Current special reports by the IPCC include the IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5 °C, which was released in October this year, and the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, which will be released in late 2019.
Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub researchers are making significant contributions to IPCC reports as authors and reviewers for the recent and future special reports and in the development of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, which will be released from 2021. Professor Nathan Bindoff from the University of Tasmania is one of these researchers, serving as a coordinating lead author of the upcoming Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere and a reviewer of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report.
In this webinar, Professor Bindoff describes the IPCC processes from the Fifth Assessment Report, and discusses some of the new and emerging research around our changing oceans. He also explores the changes in the physical-chemical system, through to the changing ecosystems and biomass in the oceans and the adaptive responses that are possible.
Watch the webinar
About the presenter
Prof Nathan Bindoff has had an extraordinary career in ocean and climate change science beginning with some of the first papers and methods for analysing the changed and changing state of the oceans. With students he discovered the acceleration of the water cycle from ocean salinity measurements due to climate change, made the first estimates of the high melt rates of the Antarctic ice sheet by the oceans, and wrote some of the first papers on human influence in the oceans. Nathan has had important leadership roles in the past three rounds of the IPCC assessment reports, and is deputy leader of Hub Project 2.4: Changing oceans and Australia’s future climate.