The climate in which we live is changing. The scientific community is in agreement on this fact, and that the change is being driven by anthropogenic sources of CO2. We do not, however, know the details: how it will play out regionally? When will the full impact of climate change be felt? Might we be in for sudden changes?

There are reasons to believe that these questions are fundamentally mathematical in nature. But the mathematical community has a culture with its own "climate." Dr. Jones will ask the question whether it will change in rising to the scientific challenges posed by a warming climate.

Image for "Public Lecture: A Tale of Two Climates"
Photo Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

About the Speaker

Christopher K.R.T. Jones is the Bill Guthridge Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and, prior to North Carolina was a Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown for thirteen years.

The main thrust of Dr. Jones' research is the use of dynamical systems as a tool for solving problems that originate in applications; in particular the use of dynamical systems methods in the study of nonlinear wave motion in neuroscience and optics, ocean dynamics and, more recently, climate. He is currently Director of the Mathematics and Climate Research Network, which is a broadly based effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, to engage the mathematical community in climate science and define the problems that will form an emerging area of "climate mathematics."

Christopher K.R.T. Jones,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill