Department of Earth and Environmental Science

Symposium: Responses, Risks and Adaptation to Climate Change

When: Friday, May 1, 2009 8:00 am – 3:30 pm
Where: Room 102, Department of Chemistry
University of Pennsylvania
231 S. 34th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Summary: A group of concerned faculty at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) is organizing a one-day symposium at Penn on “Responses, Risks and Adaptation to Climate Change”, to inform the broader University community about the challenges and opportunities of climate science for researchers and students. The symposium will showcase the diversity of climate-related research at Penn, and will also include three outside speakers to complement and diversify these themes.

There will be five distinguished speakers covering a range of topics from the effects of climate on plant evolution, to modeling past and future climate change, to the business and social impacts of climate. In addition, there is a student poster session showcasing climate-related research at Penn by graduate and undergraduate students.

Details and schedule can be found on the poster.

Information on the Speakers

Brent Helliker, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Helliker's group studies the physiological responses of plants to climate change, and seeks to determine the ecological and biogeochemical consequences of those responses. He is a member of the Penn Faculty Working Group on Responses, Risk and Adaptation to Climate Change.

Ron Stouffer, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Dr. Stouffer's primary research interest is the study of climate change, the present climate and past climate using models. He is a contributor of the Physical Science Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and was a drafting author of the 4th Assessment IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

Tony Broccoli, Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University.
Dr. Broccoli's research interest is in climate modeling, with particular emphasis on simulation of past climates and understanding regional climate change. He was a contributor and reviewer of the 4th Assessment IPCC 2007 report, and a member of the editorial board of the Glossary of Meterology, 2nd Edition.

Eric Orts, Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Orts' current research involves theories of business enterprise and climate contracts. He is Guardsmark Professor, and Director of the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is also a member of the Penn Faculty Working Group on Responses, Risk and Adaptation to Climate Change.

Roberto Schaeffer, Energy Planning Program, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Dr. Schaeffer's current research interests involve energy security in the face of climate change. He has frequently contributed to reports and assessments of the IPCC; most recently, he was lead author of IPCC 2007 Working Group 3, 4th Assessment Report on Mitigation. Currently, he is a member of the Methodology Panel on Baseline Emissions and Monitoring of the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change.