Dickinson to Host Senior Scientist From the National Center for Atmospheric Research
Linda Mearns
The Glover Memorial Lecture
by Natalia Fedorczak ’24
Linda Mearns, senior scientist in the Research Applications Lab of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, will discuss the uncertainties of climate change in realms of research, projections, impact and economics during a special event at Dickinson. The college’s biennial Glover Memorial Lecture, “Uncertainty in Climate Change Research: An Integrated Approach,” will take place on Thursday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, and the lecture will be livestreamed.
Mearns will discuss how researchers are addressing uncertainty in climate change projections. This is especially critical as political and economic decisions are often made with a basis in the information available from scientific climate change projections, many of which may suffer from inaccuracies. There is uncertainty in global and regional climate change models, due to factors of economics, international relations and resource management, among others. Mearns will consider how these confounding variables largely contribute to the directions and breadth that climate change scenarios can take and how this issue may be corrected in future models.
Mearns previously held positions as the director of the Weather and Climate Impacts Assessment Science Program, the Regional Climate Uncertainty Program and the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment. Her publications focus on regional climate change models and climate change scenario formation and uncertainties—specifically, in making climate change projections more accurate. Mearns has been featured as an author or review editor in all U.S. National Climate Assessments and has received numerous awards for her work, including an American Association of Geographers Lifetime Achievement Award (2015) and an Excellence in Research Award (2016).
The Glover Memorial Lectures are usually presented in alternate years. This lectureship in science was established in 1958 in memory of John Glover of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, the inventor of the Glover Tower, and in memory of his son and grandson, Henry and Lester Glover, by the late Dr. John D. Yeagley and Mrs. Blanche Yeagley of York, Pennsylvania. Recent Lectures include Rush Holt’s presentation “Advancing Science” and Gabriella Gonzalez’s lecture “Einstein, Black Holes and Gravitational Waves.”
This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Glover Memorial Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Center for Sustainability Education. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.
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Published November 6, 2023