On 18 June some 100 alumni and their guests pondered the contribution of mathematics to climate change.  It was not that Prof. Christopher Jones, this year’s WMI Alumni Lecturer, was accusing mathematicians of having an unusually large carbon footprint.  Rather, he took the opportunity to guide the audience through the intricacies of modelling climate change and the contribution being made to that effort by mathematicians around the world, and at Warwick in particular.

Christopher guided us through the challenges faced by the mathematics community: from creating a three dimensional map of the earth, to then deciding what variables should be modelled (both on the ground, above the surface and below the sea), the overwhelming number of basic equations which describe the behaviour of those variables, coming up with the initial conditions of each of those tens of millions of variables, then populating the model with those starting points, for which those present learned that there is a method called “spinning up”  - at which point it was not only the model that was spinning!

On the journey we were treated to some wonderful graphics of Lorenz butterflies, a dip into mathematical history (Fourier first discovered the greenhouse effect in 1824) and a detour through a few ancient Greek legends. 

The evening’s stimulating journey was rounded off by a glass of wine and a chance to catch up with some old acquaintances.  Thank you Christopher and the WMI for a great evening.  

Gillian Broadley, BSc Mathematics 1980 - 83, WMI Alumni Advisory Group