PREEVENTS Track 1: Meteorology and Impacts of Correlated Climate Extremes: New York, NY: May 28-31, 2019

This workshop will bring together a diverse range of climate scientists and climate-impacts researchers to establish the state of knowledge of correlated climate extremes, survey current research, and delineate future research programs and priorities. The intention is to expand and integrate the community of researchers and practitioners considering correlation, whether it involves climate events which are extreme in multiple variables (compound); events which are simultaneous but separated in space (concurrent); or events which impact the same location sequentially or persistently. Through cross-disciplinary dialogue, which the organizers will foster through a variety of guided and freeform discussions, the workshop will help clarify and distill lines of inquiry that are still largely separated by distance and specialization. The resultant themes will be emphasized further in a perspectives piece that will be made publically available. This award provides travel support for diverse U.S.-based students and early-career scientists. The award will enable participation of one of the pioneers in the study of compound events who is based in the Netherlands.

Correlated climate extremes exist in a variety of forms and are expected to increase greatly in frequency and severity as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. There has so far been very little communication among the different communities that study such extremes, leading to a lack of consistency in definitions and a paucity of understanding of the mechanisms that underlie these events and their associated risks. This workshop will focus on the cutting edge of work being done to understand statistics, dynamics, and thermodynamics affecting correlated climate extremes, with a particular goal of beginning to build a common framework around which future work can be designed. The attendees will comprise experts in hydrology, climate dynamics, tropical climatology, statistics, and other fields among whom structured dialogue will be fostered in order to ensure that intellectual cross-communication is achieved.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.