Event Details

DSNE seminar with James Annan (speaker) and Julia Hargreaves, Blue Skies Research

The coronavirus pandemic has brought model-based forecasting and the UK's scientific advisory process into the forefront of public view. In doing so, it has exposed serious flaws in the UK's epidemiological modelling capacity. In this presentation I will critically examine the modelling that has underpinned the UK's response, primarily from the perspective of forecasting and prediction drawing on my previous experience in climate science where I specialised in data assimilation and Bayesian statistical approaches for model tuning and initialisation. I will argue that my analyses and results demonstrate the need for a clearer emphasis on quasi-operational forecasting methods and technologies and this must be one of the lessons learnt from this episode.

James and Julia spent 13 years at Japan's foremost climate change research institute (FRSGC) where they were contributing authors to the 4th and 5th IPCC reports respectively. Their main research focus was climate change prediction with a particular emphasis on paleoclimate and model-data comparison and synthesis. They returned to the UK in 2013 and set up Blue Skies Research as an independent consultancy.

Please join viaZoom using this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85434124002?pwd=SS8xcEd3bXBPT1kwYTFaV0lBYUxvUT09

MeetingID: 854 3412 4002

Password:3E9qdP