ICLR to hold workshop on marine risks, coastal flooding

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction will be holding a workshop on May 23 focused on predicting and projecting extreme marine events, particularly coastal flooding.

Part of its ongoing Friday Forum series, ICLR’s event will host Keith Thompson, a professor with Dalhousie University’s Department of Oceanography and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

“Our relationship with the marine environment is evolving due to climate change (e.g., global sea level rise, reduced pack ice in the Northwest Passage) and also shifts in economic and societal use (e.g., deep ocean drilling, marine recreational activities),” ICLR notes.

In 2012, a new national network was established to bring together researchers and partners in a multi-sectoral partnership in order to improve Canada’s capabilities in Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response (MEOPAR).

In his talk, Thompson will first provide an overview of that network and describe some of its research, focusing mostly on coastal flooding.

He will also describe how MEOPAR is making extended-range predictions of east coast storm surges, and the probability of coastal flooding, with lead times of hours to about 10 days.

In addition, he will cover a  new statistically-based method for estimating the probability of coastal flooding over the next century, taking into account uncertainty in projections of sea level rise and storminess.

The workshop will be held at ICLR’s offices at 120 Richmond St. East in downtown Toronto from 10:00am to 11:30am.

It will also be streamed online:

• Webex Login: https://iclr.webex.com/iclr/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=663888147
• Password: coastal
• Conference Call numbers: Local – 416-343-2657 OR Toll free – 1-866-440-8938
• Conference ID: 1712397#

RSVP: Tracy Waddington (twaddington@iclr.org)