SECURE

SECURE held its third and final Annual conference at the TEACHER building in Glasgow on the 19th September, attended by 50 people from around the UK and from universities and agencies. The meeting commenced with Professor Marian Scott, the SECURE PI giving an update on the progress of the network and what it had achieved including a description of the SECURE Feasibility project portfolio (now at 16 projects in total). Throughout the day there were talks from a number of completed feasibility projects: they covered topics on water, ice, peat and biodiversity from the River Clyde to Greenland. There were also short talks on the Grand challenge feasibility projects which had recently been awarded funding, and which had been set by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), the Environment Agency and Health Protection Scotland.

There were 3 keynote talks, the first by Professor Richard Smith, Mark L. Reed III Distinguished Professor of Statistics and Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina who spoke about assessing uncertainty in climate projections. The second keynote was given by Professor Gabi Hegerl, Professor of Climate Science at the University of Edinburgh on using the past to constrain future climate projections.  The final keynote was given by  Mr Terry A'Hearn, CEO of  SEPA on living sustainably within "1 planet rather than the current 3 planets" using 3 juggling balls as the main backdrop for his talk.  He challenged us to think about how our science can help society make the necessary and essential step change.  

First published: 25 September 2017