NZCCC 2013: Barry Smit on adaptation – Inuit, wine and uncertainty

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Kicking off the afternoon sessions on the first day of this year’s NZ CCC conference, Professor Barry Smit of the University of Guelph in Canada launched his keynote — titled From theory to practice, from impacts to adaptation (abstract) — with a rousing climate version of Let It Be. I caught up with him during the evening reception, but didn’t ask him to sing…

NZCCC 2013: David Frame on climate sensitivity

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The NZ Climate Change Conference began with a keynote by Professor David Frame, the director of VUW’s Climate Change Research Institute, and I grabbed a few minutes with Dave later on the first day to find out what he’d said while I was on the plane up to Palmerston North. We talked about climate sensitivity, rapid climate change, IPCC processes, and how nice Oxford and Wellington are.

NZ Climate Change Conference 2013 day one

It’s been a long day in Palmerston North at the NZ Climate Change Conference for 2013. There’ll be nothing particularly cogent in this post, but I have recorded interviews with two of the VUW 3 — Jim Renwick tells me about the southern annular mode,the ozone hole and sea ice, and Dave Frame gives me his take on TCS, ECS and Oxford — plus Professor Barry Smit from the University of Guelph in Canada talks about Inuit, wine and uncertainty. I’ll be posting those interviews later this week, along with some more I hope to grab tomorrow, and I’m lining up some guest posts for the future. All fascinating stuff — and I have to say it’s a great relief to find a bunch of really smart people who are focussed on the nuts and bolts of the issue, not the sceptic sideshow.

The conference, or two days in Palmerston North

A busy couple of days lie ahead for your Hot Topic blogger — he’s packing a bag and heading off to Palmerston North in the morning for the New Zealand Climate Change Conference 2013. I’ll be arriving too late to hear Professor Dave Frame’s keynote on where we’re at, but I’ll be catching up with Dave later to find out — and if all goes well, posting the audio of our chat to HT. If my flight’s on time, I’ll be at Jim Renwick’s talk on Antarctic sea ice, the Southern Annular Mode, and the future of the ozone hole, and then staying in the same room to hear Suzanne Rosier from NIWA talking about an Australia/New Zealand version of the weather@home distributed computing project, put together by Oxford and Melbourne Universities and NIWA and due to launch later this year.

It’s a packed programme, with a lot of very interesting work being presented. I’m going to have a hard time working out which talks to catch, but I am certain to meet up with more than a few HT readers, and may even buy one or two a drink (if they can catch me at the bar). Look for posts and tweets as the conference unfolds…

[Nitin Sawhney]

The answer lies in the soil (you have to have a sense of humus)

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Ssomething a little different: soil expert Graham Sait talks about the importance of soil humus and its potential as a way to mitigate climate change at the recent TEDx in Noosa, Queensland. I’m not going to vouch for all his numbers, but as he devotes time to mycorrhizae he’s OK with this truffle grower… 😉