dg.o 2007

Global Climate Change Keynote Panel

In 1990, two years after its founding by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its first report on global warming, concluding that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere “very likely” will affect the climate on earth.  Their most recent report (February 2007) builds on past IPCC assessments, incorporating new and “comprehensive data, more sophisticated analyses, improvements in understanding of processes […], and more extensive exploration of uncertainty ranges.”  It concludes that “global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values.” 

International and interagency data sharing, information technology, and modeling are all valuable tools for making improved observations about global warming, disaster warning, and changes in global land cover, sea level, drought, and air quality. On Tuesday morning, May 22, the dg.o 2007 Keynote Panel on Global Warming will discuss why and how innovative computing and information technology are critical to international efforts to understand and mitigate global change.

For more information on climate change, see http://www.ipcc.ch/ or http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf (a summary for policy makers). 

For more details on data management issues, see http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/ProgramElements/obs-monitor.htm.

Panelists

• Dominique Bachelet, Director, Climate Change Science Team, The Nature Conservancy
• Barbara Eckman, Senior Technical Staff, Big Green Innovations, IBM
• Richard P. Hooper, Executive Director, Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Washington, DC
• Peter van Puijenbroek, Senior Scientist, National Environmental Assessment Agency, Netherlands
• Robert C. Worrest, Chief Scientist, National Biological Information Infrastructure, U.S. Geological Survey