Emerging Risks from Concurrent, Compounding and Record-breaking Extreme Heat across Sectors
July 10-12, 2024, The Forum at Columbia University
Hosted by the Columbia Climate School
Early career researcher travel funds application: May 1, 2024
Abstract submission: May 15, 2024
Registration: June 15, 2024
Extreme heat is a widely studied climate hazard, yet recent record-breaking heat waves have affected communities across the world and damaged critical infrastructure, cost human lives, and negatively affected public health and agriculture.
The Extreme Heat Workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners from multiple disciplines to assess and advance the state of knowledge on the mechanisms of concurrent, compounding, and record-breaking heat extremes; to identify community needs; and to develop an interdisciplinary framework for evaluating their risks on sectors including public health, energy, and agriculture, with a cross-cutting focus on climate justice.
Organizing Committee
Co-chairs: Deepti Singh (Washington State University), Mingfang Ting (Columbia University) and Radley Horton (Columbia University)
Committee members: Veeshan Narinesingh (NOAA GFDL), Katharine Mach (University of Miami), James Doss-Gollin (Rice University), Andrew Pershing (Climate Central), Kristie Ebi (University of Washington), Xiaoyu Bai (Washington State University), and Nathan Mueller (Colorado State University)
This workshop is funded under the National Science Foundation (NSF) Atmosphere and Geospace Sciences (AGS) Program and Columbia Climate Center.
Register to attend and/or present. Early career researchers may apply for travel support.
Early career researcher travel funds application: May 1, 2024
Abstract submission: May 15, 2024
Registration: June 15, 2024
Workshop Details
The Challenge
Extreme heat is a widely studied climate hazard, yet recent record-breaking heat waves have affected communities across the world and damaged critical infrastructure, cost human lives, and negatively affected public health and agriculture.
These events highlighted knowledge gaps in understanding of the drivers of extreme heat waves, the occurrence of simultaneous heatwaves, the co-occurrences of extreme heat with other climate hazards such as wildfire, and which interventions would most effectively increase resilience in a changing climate.
Recent heat events also highlighted the higher vulnerability of elderly, young people, and outdoor workers, and the higher exposure and vulnerability of historically underserved and low-income communities, and limitations in preparedness and response resources.
There is a need for a coherent, intersectional framework and methodologies to evaluate heat-related risks and inform the design, planning, community adaptation and climate and energy justice efforts.
Goals
The Extreme Heat Workshop will:
- develop a comprehensive overview of the set of unique drivers and Earth system interactions associated with concurrent, compound, and record-breaking (CCR) heat waves;
- highlight understudied physical processes and knowledge gaps of CCR heat waves;
- identify global hotspots for heat risks across sectors and systems including agriculture, energy and public health through incorporating multiple dimensions (hazards, vulnerabilities, exposures, and response) of extreme heat risks;
- develop cross-sectoral strategies to manage future CCR heat risks from the local to the national level.
Workshop key overarching goals are to:
- facilitate interdisciplinary dialogues among climate scientists, engineers, impact researchers, social scientists, and public and private sector representatives to assess the state of knowledge on heat hazards and risks and identify community needs, data gaps, research gaps and research priorities for better assessing heat risks, and
- identify cross-sectoral solutions to build societal resilience to future extreme CCR heat risks.
Structure
Workshop structure:
- Morning sessions will feature big-picture overview talks, research presentations, or panels on topics ranging from risk and drivers of extreme heat, predictability on seasonal-to-sub seasonal scales, and sectoral impacts to facilitate sharing of research across disciplines. Each overview talk will also highlight research gaps and open questions.
- Semi-structured afternoon sessions focused on cross-sectoral working groups (e.g., heat and health, heat and agriculture) to discuss research intersections, understand the needs of stakeholders and practitioners, and identify gaps, barriers, and opportunities for interdisciplinary research. Cross-disciplinary sessions will also focus on pathways to building climate resilience and achieving climate justice in each sector using storyline approaches (Shepherd et al., 2018).
- Evening poster sessions featuring research by students and postdocs.
Deliverables
Workshop deliverables:
- A perspective paper to share insights, research gaps and priorities, frameworks and resources for cross-disciplinary research on extreme heat with the research community, agencies, and the broader public.
- Recorded talks and posters made publicly-available.
- A database of the expertise and contact information of attendees.
- A catalog of public datasets to facilitate cross-disciplinary research.
Youth & Educator Workshop
July 8-9 Heat Wave and Data Science Training Workshop
Prior to the Extreme Heat Workshop on July 8-9 at The Forum, members of the organizing committee and local attendees will conduct a training workshop for local youth and educators. If you are interested in participating, please contact Deepti Singh at [email protected].