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The Aspen Global Change Institute will host a public lecture Wednesday about how climate change can increase the intensity of extreme weather events and why it is important to improve modeling and monitoring capabilities.
The presentation by Chris Funk is titled “Drought, Fire, Flood: How Modeling Can Help Prepare for Catastrophes.”
Funk is a senior research geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Early Warning and Environmental Monitoring Group. He is also a research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The world experienced an unprecedented series of droughts, floods, fires, heat waves and hurricanes between 2015 and 2018 that took thousands of lives and livelihoods of millions of people, according to event description. The calamities resulted in more than $700 billion in damages.
“The frequency and costs of weather- and climate-related catastrophes is increasing dramatically, as more people and a warmer climate conspire to place more people in warm’s way,” Aspen Global Change Institute said in the description.
Funk will discuss how satellite observations, complex models and decision-making networks help humankind manage risk and work towards a more suitable future.
The free lecture will be at 6 p.m. at Aspen Center for Environmental Studies’ headquarters at Hallam Lake in Aspen. The Aspen Global Change Institute will also stream the presentation live on its Facebook page.