Events

Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai is organizing a seminar on Extreme Weather and Climate Change in New York and Mumbai, led by Dr. Adam Sobel, Professor in the Departments of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, and Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, where he directs the new Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate.  Professor Sobel will discuss the risks from extreme weather and climate change to Mumbai and New York in the coming decades, and place them in the broader context of the influence of climate change on extreme weather events.  Both Mumbai and New York City have a lot in common as coastal megacities with large populations, and as economic and cultural centers to their respective nations and the world.  Both are also extremely vulnerable to coastal storms and sea-level rise, and both have experienced severe flooding in the last decade.  Professor Sobel will describe some of the data and methodologies scientists use to understand these problems and how they are evolving.  Participants will have an opportunity to interact with him on questions pertaining to research and teaching in this field.   

The long-term goal of this program is to enhance the capacity of college faculty in India, to be able to effectively take up research and teaching in the emerging fields of environment and science.  

This seminar is by invitation only.

About the speaker:

Adam Sobel is a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is an atmospheric scientist who specializes in the dynamics of climate and weather, particularly in the tropics, on time scales of days to decades. A major focus of his current research is extreme events - such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts, and the risks these pose to human society in the present and future climate. He leads the Columbia University Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate. Sobel has received the Meisinger Award from the American Meteorological Society, the Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, an AXA Award in Extreme Weather and Climate from the AXA Research Fund, and an Ascent Award from the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union. Sobel is author or co-author of over 135 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and his book about Hurricane Sandy, Storm Surge, published in October 2014 by Harper-Collins, received the 2014 Atmospheric Science Librarians International Choice Award in the popular category and the 2016 Louis J. Battan Award from the American Meteorological Society.