If you find John Rundle talk interesting tonight, remember he will be following
up with a community discussion tomorrow (Thurs) night sponsored by the Santa Fe
Alliance for Science. More details at:
http://www.sfafs.org/calendar.aspLecture tonight:
SFI Public Lecture
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
7:30 PM at the James A Little Theater
John Rundle, Director, California Hazards Institute of the University of
California; Director, UC Davis Center for Computational Science and Engineering;
Professor of Physics, Engineering, and Geology, University of California, Davis
with Discussant Geoffrey B. West, President and Distinguished Professor, Santa
Fe Institute
Forecasting Natural Disasters in the Chaotic and Complex Earth
In the recent past we have seen the December 2004 Sumatra earthquake and
tsunami; the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina that destroyed New Orleans and the
Gulf Coast; and the Pakistan earthquake in October 2005. Other, less
catastrophic disasters include a multiplicity of landslides, flooding,
wildfires, tornadoes, and epidemics. For many of these events, vast quantities
of satellite data are opening new horizons to better understanding them. Using
space-time patterns and information about the dynamics of these high-dimensional
nonlinear earth systems, it is often possible to construct numerical simulations
that can be used to make predictions about the evolution of the system and the
possible occurrence of extreme events.
Locked
