date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:59:56 +0000
from: Nick Brooks <nick.brooks@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Brief report back on Catastrophes meeting
to: <tyn.uea@uea.ac.uk>, Ian Harris <i.harris@uea.ac.uk>, <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>, Mike Leeder <M.Leeder@uea.ac.uk>, Tim Jickells <t.jickells@uea.ac.uk>, Ute <U.Schuster@uea.ac.uk>, Sue Turner <s.turner@uea.ac.uk>, d023 <D.Conway@uea.ac.uk>, Roger Few <r.few@uea.ac.uk>, Nick Drake <nick.drake@kcl.ac.uk>, Kevin White <k.h.white@reading.ac.uk>

Dear all

I've just returned from a very wet and green Sahara, having attended a
meeting on "Rapid and Catastrophic Environmental Changes in the Holocene and
Human Response", organised by Suzanne Leroy at Brunel and sponsored by the
following bodies:
 IGCP 490 (The role of Holocene environmental catastrophes human history
 ICSU DARK NATURE - RAPID NATURAL CHANGE AND HUMAN RESPONSES
 IUGS - GEOIND Geoindicators Initiative
 INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research)

(IGCP is the International Geological Correlation Programme; ICSU is the
International Council for Science - not sure where the "U" comes in!)

The meeting dealt with a variety of topics including palaeoclimatic proxies
(emphasising pollen records), climate modelling, palaeofloods, climate and
solar variability, dust, indicators of geological hazards, coastal
upwelling, tsunami detection, earthquakes, desertification, archaeology and
human migration, and the role of environmental change in cultural
development.

The meeting emphasised processes relevant to northwestern Africa, but also
dealt with wider issues. Several participants had links with UEA through CRU
and Tyndall; Michel Crucifix from the Hadley Centre gave an interesting
presentation on modelling vegetation climate interactions in the Sahel.
Martin Williams of desertification fame was also there, along with Francoise
Gasse, Henry Hooghiemstra and others looking at palaeoclimatic proxies.
Francoise gave an interesting talk on correlations between solar variability
and African lake levels, which may be of interest to some of you.

The geoindicators element was interesting and relevant to the vulnerability,
hazard and risk work going on in units such as Tyndall, and I gave an extra
impromptu presentation on vulnerability and risk within this context.

I have a book of extended abstracts if anyone wants to have a look at it,
and have requested a couple more for the Tyndall library - the abstracts are
quite detailed. Some of these will be published as full papers in a special
issue of the Journal of the Geological Society of London.

There will be some more meetings following on from this one, culminating in
a "Catastrophes Congress" in Egypt in 2007. If anyone wants some more
information, drop me a line and/or take a look at the following websites:

  http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/igcp490/igcp490home.html (IGCP)
  http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/ges/ICSU-DN/ICSU-DN.htm (ICSU)
  http://www.inqua.tcd.ie/ (INQUA)
  http://www.lgt.lt/geoin/ (Geoindicators)
  http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/ges/igcp490/maur2004.htm (Conference page)

I'm sending this to Tyndall and to a few others who may be interested - feel
free to forward to colleagues if you think there is anything here or
interest to them.

Cheers

Nick
--
Dr Nick Brooks
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
Tel: +44 1603 593904
Fax: +44 1603 593901
Email: nick.brooks@uea.ac.uk
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~e118/welcome.htm (personal site)
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk (Tyndall Centre site)
http://www.uea.ac.uk/sahara (Saharan Studies Programme)
--



