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Mathematics in the Geosciences, September 2001 - June 2002

Dynamical systems theory provides fundamental ideas and tools for the modeling, analysis, and prediction of the climate system. The successive bifurcation approach, in particular, has provided a systematic way to help understand increasingly complex climate behavior, in space and time. The ideas and tools of nonlinear dynamics are most easily grasped and applied in the context of low-dimensional models, but have been applied more recently to large and detailed models, such as the general circulation models used in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate-system dynamics. The workshop will be dedicated to the systematic application of this approach to the full hierarchy of climate models. For didactic and methodological purposes, we shall emphasize relatively simple models with a clear mathematical description, such as paleoclimate models and their astronomical forcing.

Conservative Hamiltonian systems will be illustrated by models of planetary motion, while forced-dissipative systems will be illustrated primarily by models of the Quaternary ice ages and other paleoclimate models. The study of the Solar System's stability has motivated many advances in dynamical systems theory. The workshop will emphasize the applications of these advances to the largely unsolved problems of the actual system's evolution on various time scales. Paleoclimate models will be formulated, based on physico-chemical principles and the available empirical evidence, as closed mathematical systems. These systems will be analyzed and the results compared with the most recent information on past climate change.

Keywords: bifurcations, celestial mechanics, climate dynamics, transitions

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

LIST OF CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS
(in addition to postdocs and long-term participants)

Mathematics in the Geosciences, September 2001 - June 2002