The uncertainty in climate modelling. Professor Lenny Smith is part of an e-Roundtable organised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Confidence, uncertainty and decision-support relevance in climate predictions
Climate modelling research requires rebalancing if it is to move quickly to providing better information for tomorrow's decision makers, say researchers from LSE's Centre for the Analysis of Time Series (CATS).
The paper, Confidence, Uncertainty and Decision-support Relevance in Climate Predictions, was written by Professor David Stainforth, a visiting research fellow at CATS, Professor Lenny Smith, director of CATS, CATS researcher Edward Tredger and Myles Allen of Oxford University More

CATS members gave a number of presentations at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly, April 2007.  See EGU2007 for abstracts

New book due out in next few weeks:  Chaos: A Very Short Introduction   by Lenny Smith  
Oxford University Press (February 2007)

Chaos exists in systems all around us. Even the simplest system of cause and effect can be subject to chaos, denying us accurate predictions of its behaviour, and sometimes giving rise to astonishing structures of large-scale order. Our growing understanding of Chaos Theory is having fascinating applications in the real world - from technology to global warming, politics, human behaviour, and even gambling on the stock market.
Leonard Smith shows that we all have an intuitive understanding of chaotic systems. He uses accessible maths and physics (replacing complex equations with simple examples like pendulums, railway lines, and tossing coins) to explain the theory, and points to numerous examples in philosophy and literature (Edgar Allen Poe, Chang-Tzu, Arthur Conan Doyle) that illuminate the problems. The beauty of fractal patterns and their relation to chaos, as well as the history of chaos, and its uses in the real world and implications for the philosophy of science are all discussed in this book. Publisher information

ECMWF Verification workshop, 29th Jan - 2nd Feb 2007, sponsored by WMO/WCRP/WWRP/COST.  Professor Lenny Smith with Dr Jochen Broecker and Hailiang Du gave two presentations - see Talks & Presentations

Bayesian Physics and Decision Support in Climate-like Modelling, SAMSI, 27th November 2006. Professor Lenny Smith led a brain-storming session deriving climate models, contrasting implications of parametric uncertainty, model inadequacy and empirical (in)adequacy in terms of decision support and the advancement of science, followed by a discussion on how those trained in the Bayesian Way might best deploy their skills both in aid of our understanding of the earth system and in response to climate change [and climate-like problems more generally]

Lloyd's funds new LSE researcher to look at climate change and the insurance industry
To help underwriters better understand the risks associated with climate change, Lloyd's is funding a PhD research post the School to investigate just how informative climate models are to decision making in the insurance industry. Daniel Hawellek is the new Lloyds-sponsored student to receive the funding and will be based in the Centre for the Analysis of Time Series (CATS). The post is also funded through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) CASE programme.

Professor Lenny Smith and CATS visiting research fellows, Professor Nigel Harvey and Dr David Stainforth, participated as members of a round table discussion at the WMO Climate Risk Conference in Espoo, Finland: Living with Climate Variability and Change, 16th - 21st July 2006.  (For further information on this see Media and Outreach )

Professor Lenny Smith contributed to the workshop: "Applying Complex Modelling Techniques to Sustainability Challenges", at the European Commission in Brussels, 16th June 2006. (Summary notes)

Professor Lenny Smith and CATS Visiting Research Fellow Dr Kevin Judd both gave talks at the conference "20 years of Nonlinear Dynamics in Geosciences" in Rhodes, Greece, June 2006. See Talks & Presentations for titles & abstracts

Members of CATS will present a day of seminars and a roundtable discussion at the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting on 16th May 2006 focusing on insights gained from experiences with ECMWF forecasts.

Professor Lenny Smith delivers keynote address at Schlumberger workshop in Oxford: "Why I'm not a Bayesian",  4th April 2006

Dr Liam Clarke attended the 2006 European Study Group with Industry at Bath University, 4th-7th April. Of the many problems presented the most interesting was that brought to the study group by British Energy: that of predicting high electricity consumption days.

Centre for the Study of Global Governance Public Debate: Climate Change and Civil Society: who is speaking for whom?  February 2nd, 2006, 6.30pm at LSE (Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building)

Oikos International roundtable discussion: "Meeting the Risk of Climate Change: Management or Prevention?". January 31st, 2006, 7.15 - 9.00 pm at LSE

L Clarke & LA Smith (2005) Detecting Transparent Noise.  Submitted to Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing. Status: currently under minor revision following reviews. Abstract

MC Cuellar, L Clarke, M Brown & LA Smith (2005) The Role of Operational Constraints on MCMC Parameter Estimation: The case of the UK Electricity Grid.  Submitted to International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems.    Status: Under review. Abstract

DIME (Direct & Inverse Modelling in End-to-End Environmental Estimation) project.   (EPSRC grant, GR/R92363/01). 
The DIME project will close by the end of February. Final preparations for the end of the project include a revision of the DIME project forecast and evaluation website as well as the revision of published and to-be-published material. These publications, along with the software package emtool, will be made available from the CATS publications web site as far as possible. On the CATS Discussion Forum pages, a vivid discussion of results and issues around DIME is already ongoing (see the forum topic 'Tools for Forecasting').

WWRP/THORPEX Scientific Conference: "Improving the Global Predictability of High Impact Weather And a review of Southern Hemisphere Plans for THORPEX". 13-15 February 2006, Cape Town, SA

Workshop on Operational Approaches to Managing Weather Risk - Atlanta, GA, USA, 2-3 December 2004

ISF2004 - Sydney, Australia, 4-7 July 2004

Workshop on forecasting and applications - Brisbane, Australia, 2 July 2004

Workshop on Operational Approaches to Weather Risk: Hours to Decades - London, UK, 22 June 2004

Observational constraints on future climate: distinguishing robust from model-dependent statements of uncertainty in climate forecasting   Contribution to the IPCC Workshop on Communicating Uncertainty and Risk - County Kildare, Ireland, 11-13 May 2004

IMSC9 - Cape Town, South Africa, 24-28 May 2004Contribution to the IPCC Workshop on Communicating Uncertainty and Risk, May, 2004

CATS in Nice: European Geosciences Union - EGU 1st General Assembly - Nice, France, 25 - 30 April 2004

WCRP Feedback Workshop