The Earth is a complex system. Land, water and atmosphere are in a constant dance, fed by sunlight and nudged by geothermal forces, impacts from space and, increasingly, human activity. Modelling a system this complex is extremely difficult, but essential if we want to know what humanity faces in this era of changing climate.

Join RCIScience for another Science Sunday where Professor Richard Peltier will show us how physics and computational methods are used to create models of our past and future climate.  

Professor Richard Peltier is a Professor of Physics at the University of Toronto, Director of the Centre for Global Climate Change Science and the Scientific Director of SciNet - Canada’s largest supercomputing centre, which he helped to create.

A geophysicist, Prof Peltier’s investigations of thermal convection and geothermal hydrodynamics lead naturally to an interest in computational modelling. His work includes studying nonlinear processes in the atmosphere, including investigating the connection of ice-ages to variations in Earth's orbital geometry. In all of these demanding subjects, he brings penetrating mathematical skills that have set new standards of analysis.

Professor Peltier has also been a remarkably productive teacher, advising many students who have become outstanding scientists in their own right. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Meteorological Society and of the American Geophysical Union - the latter of which is an honour bestowed upon only a limited number each year, and often only after a lifetime of internationally recognized scientific leadership.

Reserve your spot here.