Featuring:
Janette Lindesay, Deputy Director of the Fenner School for Environment and Society, ANU
Steven Lade, Nonlinear Physics Centre, ANU

What's all the fuss about feedbacks? For that matter, what is a feedback? Why is it so bad?

At the recent climate science conference in Copenhagen, many scientists claimed that future climate change is likely to be worse than previously expected. A major reason for this worsening of opinion was that many feedbacks in the climate system, previously ignored or purposefully underestimated for lack of knowledge, are becoming better understood.

This forum will review, for a non-technical audience, what feedbacks and non-linearities are, why they can lead to 'runaway change' and other drastic effects in systems such as the climate, what recent scientific developments have led to better understanding of climate feedbacks, and how this affects predictions of likely future climate change. Time will also be available for questions.

Hosted by Climate Action Canberra.