Program day 2

Convenors: Thomas Stocker - University of Bern, Switzerland; Katrin Meissner - University of New South Wales, Australia; Krishna Achuta Rao - Indian Institute of Technology, India

Session description : Advances in assessment, understanding, modeling and impact of potential rapid and/or irreversible changes (sometimes known as “tipping points”) in the climate system potential irreversible changes in ice sheets, sea-ice, forests, permafrost, AMOC and coral reefs etc.

Keynote speakers:

• "Hysteresis and irreversibility in a climate system", Soon-Il An - Yonsei University, Republic of Korea - Remotely
• "The role of internal variability and feedbacks controlling AMOC stability", Anastasia Romanou - NASA, USA
• "Earth system tipping points and how to anticipate them", Niklas Boers - Technical University of Munich, Germany - Remotely

Convenors: Galen McKinley - Columbia University, USA; Pedro Monteiro - Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Ana Bastos - Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie, Germany

Session description: Advances in understanding of the land and ocean carbon cycle perturbation over the historical period and into the 21st century and beyond.

Keynote speakers:

• "What have we learned about the carbon cycle in the past 10 years?", Pep Candell - CSIRO, Australia
• "Investigating the carbon cycle response in low emissions scenarios", Kirsten Zickfeld - Simon Fraser University, Canada - Remotely
• "Detecting the impact of extreme climate events on terrestrial biosphere carbon cycle from space" Junjie Liu - NASA JPL, USA - Remotely
• "Regime change in the mechanism of CO2 uptake in the Southern Ocean under high emission scenario", Precious Mongwe - CSIR, South Africa

Convenors : Bruce Hewitson - Capetown University, South Africa

Session description : The power of learning from humility, honesty and admitting failure. How climate services can go wrong. Contested power dynamics. Mis-communicating certainty. Misunderstandings and confusion. Assumptions and biases. Cross-cultural complications. Fostering a community of collaboration versus competition.

Keynote speakers:

• "F(r)iction and Friendship: partnerships in Africa between the global north and south", Bruce Hewitson - Capetown University, South Africa
• "International best practices for climate risk resilience in African developing countries", Oratilwe Khoza - University of the Free State, South Africa

Convenors: Chris Lennard - University of Cape Town, South Africa; Addisu Semie - Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia; Elisabeth Vogel - University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia

Session description : Assess impact of climate change (including extremes) on human systems with a focus on water resources, agriculture and food supply, etc.

Keynote speakers:

• "Thinking beyond the mean – How taking an extreme view on climate change empowers prediction", Chris Funk - Climate Hazards Center (CHC), USA
• "Rethinking Africa Climate Services: Opportunities for strengthening resilience and sustainability", Arame Tall - Climate Change Group, World Bank - Remotely
• "Non-linear climate change impacts on crop yields may misinform stakeholders", Alexander Ruane - NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA

Convenors: Bjorn Stevens - Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Germany; Ruby Leung - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA; Tianjun Zhou - Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Session description : Advances in global and regional climate and Earth System modelling, including the benefits of increasing resolution, improved parametrizations and ensembles for exploring uncertainty. Including novel techniques with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Keynote speakers:

• "An African-based Earth System model: verification of land-atmosphere fluxes",Francois Engelbrecht - University of Pretoria, South African
• "Improving Earth System Model Parametrizations with Machine Learning", Veronika Eyring - DRL, Germany
• "Toward a Python-based computing and data platform for kilometer-scale weather and climate modeling", Nicolas Gruber - ETHZ, Switzerland

Convenors: Toste Tanua - GEOMAR, Germany; Magdalena Balmaseda - ECMWF, UK; Juan Ruiz - Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera (CIMA), Argentina

Session description : Advances in observing the climate system, including new space-based and Earth-based platforms, new technologies, and new data sets, and advances in data assimilation and reanalysis, with a particular focus on climate science requirements and opportunities. Including novel techniques with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Keynote speakers:

• "Constraining historical ocean carbon uptake with models, machine learning and data", Galen McKinley - Columbia University, USA
• "Internationally Coordinated, Top-down Global Greenhouse Gas Monitoring, a WMO initiative", Lars Peter Riishojgaard - WMO, Switzerland

Convenors: Sandrine Bony - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD-IPSL), France; Steven Sherwood - University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia; Masahiro Watanabe - University of Tokyo, Japan

Session description : Advances in understanding the physical feedbacks which shape the climate response to radiative forcings, and their combination to determine transient and equilibrium climate sensitivity. The role of clouds in the climate system is a particular focus.

Keynote speakers:

• "Convective aggregation and climate", Adrian Tompkins - ICTP Trieste, Italy
• "Recent advances in understanding the longwave clear-sky feedback", Nadir Jeevanjee - NOAA/GFDL, USA
• "Climate sensitivity – the IPCC AR6 assessment and beyond", Trude Storelvmo - University of Oslo, Norway

Convenors: Ángel G. Muñoz - Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain; Franck Eitel Ghomsi - University of Yaounde, Cameroon; Yong Luo - Tsinghua University, China

Session description: Developing early warning systems. Impact and risk probability. Integration with quantitative impact analyses (contributions to IPCC AR7 and Global Stocktake). Climate triggers for anticipatory adaptation.

Keynote speaker:

• "COVID Impacts Cause Critical Gaps in the Indian Ocean Observing System", Janet Sprintall - Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA

Convenors: Julia Pongratz - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany; David Lawrence - UCAR, USA; Anna Ukkola - University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia

Session description : Role of changes in land cover and land use on the Earth system. This includes changes in biophysical and biogeochemical cycles and includes direct human alteration of the continental water cycle.

Keynote speaker:

• "Anthropizing CESM's terrestrial water cycle", Thierry Wim -Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium - Remotely

Convenors: Thando Ndarana - University of Pretoria, South Africa; Tiffany Shaw - University of Chicago, USA; Marcia Zilli - University of Oxford, UK

Session description : Advances in understanding processes and variability of eddies, storm tracks and jets from mesoscale to planetary scale at all latitudes and levels in the atmosphere and ocean. Studies related to dynamical mechanisms of the storms and jet response to climate change will be included.

• "The role of eddies and jets in shaping the climate"Sukyoung Lee - Penn State University, USA
• "Feature-based analysis of the North Atlantic eddy-driven jet stream"Amanda Maycock - Leeds University, UK
• "The dynamics of different types of Rossby wave breaking in the South African domain"Thando Ndarana - University of Pretoria, South Africa