Science Café Fort Collins — February 13, 2008

Listen to Dr. David Randall
Dr. David Randall speaks about The World in a Machine: How Climate Models Work at Science Café.

Location	Lucky Joe’s, 25 Old Town Square
Led by	Dr. David Randall Director, Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes
Topic:	The World in a Machine: How Climate Models Work

The World in a Machine: How Climate Models Work Here is your chance to learn something about the models that are used to predict future changes in the climate. How and when and where did climate modeling get started? What are the basic ingredients of a climate model? How are the models used to predict future climate? How can we tell if the models are giving the right answer? How can we hope to predict anything about climate change, when we can’t even predict next week’s weather? What are some of the problems that modelers are currently working on?

Meet David Randall:
David Randall is Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1976. Prior to coming to CSU in 1988, he worked at M.I.T. and NASA.

Randall has been doing research with climate models since 1972, and specializes in developing improvements to the models, with a special emphasis on modeling cloud processes. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the recently released Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Panel received a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Randall is the Director of a National Science Foundation “Science and Technology Center” (STC) called the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes. This is one of only 17 STCs nationwide, and the first STC ever in the state of Colorado. He has also received major research funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, and from NASA. Over the past 20 years, he has brought more than 40 million dollars of research funding to CSU. Almost all of the money has been used to pay students and staff who live in Fort Collins.

He has published over 160 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has Chaired a number of national and international panels and science teams. He was awarded NASA’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 2006, NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1988, and the Meisinger Award of the American Meteorological Society in 1994. He has also received awards from Colorado State University for Scholarship Impact, Research, and Graduate Advising. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.