EXTREMES 2010: International Workshop in Recent Achievements on the Study of Extreme Events (VW-Workshop)

The main goal of this interdisciplinary workshop is to highlight potential directions and perspectives of further research and to stimulate new work in this field. We will in particular address young scientists of various disciplines as the next generation of researchers. But simultaneously, through presentations at the frontier of our knowledge by renowned scientists, also the high level scientific discussion will be fostered. In the presentations, we focus on the areas of theoretical physics, mathematics, climatology, hydrology, and economy. Since we expect cross-fertilization, among the audience we also expect representatives from other fields including, e.g., geophysics or engineering. The workshop will be a platform to exchange ideas, knowledge and new aspects on prediction and modeling of extremes from the view of different disciplines, and to allow young researchers to catch up to the frontiers in this research.

In order to provide such a platform, the workshop will mainly consist of three parts. A tutorial lecture at the morning of the first day will serve starters in the field to obtain an overview on the basic theoretical concepts, model classes and methods to analyse extreme events. Topical lecture notes, oral and poster presentations given by invited scientists and participants will be main part of the workshop for exchanging knowledge and ideas on the most recent developments in the studies of extreme events.

Topics

• Theory on extreme events
• Statistical evaluation of extremes derived from palaeo data
• Uncertainties of prediction and impact of extremes
• Climate extremes under a changing environment
• Disaster impact modelling
• Modelling on long-range and spatial scales

Organizers

Norbert Marwan (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany)
Jürgen Kurths (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany)
Holger Kantz (Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems Dresden, Germany)

Supporting staff

Alexander Radebach
Jobst Heitzig
Heike Prietzel

This seminar is kindly supported by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Photos: Courtesy of NOAA and U.S. Department of Defense