11 July - 3 August 2022
29 November - 2nd December 2022
Biography
Professor Evans is based in the Department of Geology and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Centre at the University of Maryland. He has 72 publications in leading journals, including Nature, Science, J. Climate, Climate Dynamics, Climate of the Past, and Quaternary Science Reviews, with over 9000 citations and an H-index of 39. He has been awarded over GBP$6M in grant funding since 1998. He has developed 13 undergraduate and postgraduate courses at four colleges and universities in the US and Australia.
Summary
The climate system, broadly defined as the interacting oceans, atmosphere, land surface, land and sea ice, biota, and solid earth, integrates and responds to natural forcing and unforced wander over decades and centuries. How then, to distinguish it from climate change which is human-driven and occurring over the same time frame? Professor Evans proposes to address this question with a direct comparison between observations and realistically forced simulations of climate over the past 2000 years. By producing simulations of paleoclimatic data from realistically forced climate models and models of the paleoclimatic data themselves, he will enable their “apples-to-apples” comparison. We can distinguish the detection of response to the human-caused vs natural forcings using single forcing climate simulations as input to the data simulations, and then assessing the oceans, on land, in lakes and from ice caps. Similarly, unforced simulations can be used to detect the extent of observed variation which is consistent with the observations. Professor Evans will work with Bristol scientists to develop a large ensemble of climate and data simulations, in particular for stable isotope observations in corals, trees and lake sediments. The results will permit the detection of the forced and unforced climate responses in both temperature and moisture.
Professor Evans is hosted by Professor of Physcial Geography Paul Valdes in the School of Geographical Sciences.
Events:
Open Seminar hosted by the Cabot Institute for the Environment and BRIDGE
'How good are global climate projections … out to 2050? '
How can we distinguish natural climate change from climate change caused by human activities? It's not easy when the natural changes can occur over decades and centuries. But the answer is important for assessing the accuracy of climate change projections and for determining the importance of actions that avoid future climate change. Professor Evans will describe research that addressed this question and concluded that the simulation of forced and natural climate variability out several decades is not unrealistic. And our choices about energy sources and efficiency will indeed matter.
Postgraduate talk hosted by BRIDGE
Applications of proxy system modelling in high resolution paleoclimatology
Professor Evans will provide postgraduate students with an introduction to the concept of proxy system modelling, and then describe specific applications in observing network design, systematic error estimation and propagation, data assimilation and climate change fingerprinting.
Postgraduate seminar hosted by the NERC GW4+ DTP
On starting and managing a PAGES working group
Professor Evans and Professor Valdes will introduce Past Global Changes (PAGES), a global research network of Future Earth, and describe how early career scientists can get involved, propose and lead international, community-driven, future-relevant paleoscience.
