Munich Re Talks and Presentations

24 September 2013 - 'Evaluating the Economics of Climate Risks and Opportunities in the Insurance Sector - five years of research under the LSE Munich Re programme', London.

7-12 April 2013 - EGU General Assembly 2013, Vienna 
'Forecasting the probability of tropical cyclone formation: the reliability of NOAA forecasts from the 2012 hurricane season' - Alex Jarman and Leonard Smith. Presentation discussed how short-term (48 hour) probabilistic forecasting has become an integral part of the prediction of events caused by Atlantic tropical cyclones. Forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Hurricane Center (NHC) post subjective probability tropical cyclone forecasts out to 48 hours during each hurricane season. The strengths and weaknesses of the 2012 forecasts were examined.

13 July 2012 - Town and Country Planning Association, London
'Can England Adapt? Planning for climate change' - Swenja Surminski. Seminar was on spatial implications of increasingly rapid temperature changes, drought, flood risk and sea level rise on human populations, with a particular focus on water resources, housing, food security and social justice.

27 June 2012 - Incisive Media, London
'A Gamble or a Cost Saver? Exploring management buy-ins to the risk of catastrophic losses' - Swenja Surminski in a seminar that looked at the corporate sector’s response to natural disaster, part of breakfast briefing discussion.

12-13 June 2012 - IIASA and UNISDR, Laxenburg, Austria
Presentation on methods to account for loss and damages of climate change - Swenja Surminski in a workshop on Global Disaster Risk Analysis and the Economics of Disaster Risk Management.

10-11 May 2012 - OECD Paris, France
Presentation on the role of the private sector in climate change adaptation -Swenja Surminski, OECD policy Forum on Adaptation to Climate Change in OECD Countries.

15 March 2012 - LSE
'Coupled dynamic modelling of the economy and of the climate system'
The speaker Professor Michael Ghil gave a review of the classical arguments about business modelling.

22 September 2011 - European Association of Mutual Insurers AMICE's seminar 'Tomorrow's emerging risks', Copenhagen
Talk on climate change and the insurance industry: Swenja Surminski

6-13 August 2011 - ICIS workshop, 'Verification, Validation and Uncertainty Quantification Across Disciplines', Park City, Utah
'Scientific Support for Climate Policy: is a VVUQ analysis of today's models helpful? And where not: what then?' - Leonard Smith

19-26 July 2011 - 14th Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Nancy, France
'Insight or Numbers? Distinguishing climate science from climate modelling' - Leonard Smith at the SPS side event, 'Climate Science and Climate Change: epistemological and methodological issues'

23 June 2011 - LSE Department of Statistics' PhD Presentation Event
'Small-Number Statistics, Common Sense and Profit: challenges and non-challenges for hurricane forecasting' - Alex Jarman

5-9 June 2011 -  The 28th International Conference on Mathematical Geophysics Modelling Earth Dynamics: Complexity, Uncertainty and Validation, Pisa, Italy Extracting Insight from Predictions of the Irrelevant: can the diversity in our models inform our uncertainty of the future? - Leonard Smith at the special session, 'Can our models only predict the irrelevant?', in memory of Professor Tarantola. 

29 June-2 July 2011 - 18th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Rome and
9-10 June 2011 - The inaugural American Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Summer Conference, Seattle
'Ambiguity and Climate Policy' - Antony Millner, Simon Dietz and Geoffrey Heal presented work based on their paper. Also presented at several other important international conferences.

25-27 May 2011 - NORDITA, Stockholm
'Nowcasting Via Gradient Descent: moving from theory towards reality' - Hailiang Du, Predictability + School on Data Assimilation

25-27 May 2011 - NORDITA, Stockholm
'Things They Didn't Tell You Last Week: DA in maths, physics, and decision support' -Leonard Smith, Predictability + School on Data Assimilation.

26 May 2011 - Current Challenges in Climate Modelling, University of Uppsala, Sweden 
'What (and Who) Do Ensembles of Climate Models Inform' - Leonard Smith

26 May 2011 - LSE
'Small-Number Statistics, Common Sense and Profit: challenges and non-challenges for hurricane forecasting' - Alex Jarman and Leonard Smith

3 April 2011 - Epistemology of Modeling and Simulation Conference, University of Pittsburgh
'Insight or Numerical Engineering? The role of simulation modeling in quantitative decision support' - Leonard Smith

23 March 2011 - Cass Business School, London
'Modelling Insurance Markets: value of seasonal weather forecasts' - Trevor Maynard, seminar

16 March 2011 - Sustainable Business Lecture Series, LSE 
'Insuring the Uninsurable' - Swenja Surminski at 'Preparing for Stormy Weather - identifying and managing climate risks', part of the BusinessGreen.com.

14-16 March 2011 - 'All Models are Wrong' workshop, Groningen
'All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Dangerous: philosophical aspects of statistical model selection' - Leonard Smith

1 March 2011 - Risk Prevention Initiative (RPI) of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science (BIOS)
'Towards Decision Relevant Hurricane Risk Scenarios' - Falk Niehoerster

March 2011 - 'Ambiguity and Climate Policy' - Simon Dietz presented work based on his paper with Anthony Millner and Geoffrey Heal to the Scottish Government.

17 March 2011 - World Bank Experts Roundtable on Urban Flood Risk Management, hosted by the East Asia and Pacific Disaster Risk Management team
'The Role of Climate Change in Urban Flood Risk Management Today' - Nicola Ranger

30 March 2011 - The Grantham Research Institute PhD Seminar Series
'Small-Number Statistics, Common Sense and Profit: challenges and non-challenges for hurricane forecasting' - Alex Jarman

24-25 February 2011 - Law and Economics of Natural Hazards Management in a Changing Climate seminar, Innsbruck, Austria
'The Implications of Climate Model Uncertainty for Insurance and Adaptation Decision Making' - Swenja Surminski

23 February 2011 - The Grantham Research Institute, Imperial College London
'Contrasting Weather Prediction, Climate Projection and Scientific Insight: can technical aspects of Data Assimilation tell us about the Decision Relevance of Models?' - Leonard Smith

10-11 February 2011 - Economics of Natural Disasters - bridging disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation efforts and strategies' workshop, Venice, Italy
'Adaptation to Climate Extremes: investigating the role of the private sector - the case of the insurance industry' - Swenja Surminski

3-4 February 2011 - 'Cat Risk Management Modelling: measuring, managing and mitigating cat risk' Conference, London, UK
'Cat Risk Management: an academic perspective' - Swenja Surminski illustrated the Munich Re research programme, with its different applications.

19-21 January 2011 - EQUIP Conference, 'Equipping Society for Climate Change through Improved Treatments of Uncertainty, Leeds, UK
'Small-Number Statistics, Common Sense and Profit: challenges and non-challenges for hurricane forecasting' - Alex Jarman presented a poster.

13-17 December 2010 - AGU Fall Meeting 2010, San Francisco, USA
'Revisiting the Use of Climate Models for Adaptation Decision Making' - Nicola Ranger

12-16 July 2010 - 11th International Meeting on Statistical Climatology (IMSC), Edinburgh, UK
CCCEP/CATS presentations (abstracts of the talks and posters) - Leonard Smith, Nicola Ranger, Falk Niehoerster, Alex Jarman and others

11-14 July 2010 - 'Energy, Environment and Climate' stream at the EUROXXIV Conference, Lisbon, Portugal
Two sessions on i) carbon markets, ii) on decision making under model uncertainty: Max Fehr and Pauline Barrieu

11-14 July 2010 - 'Energy, Environment and Climate' stream at the EUROXXIV conference, Lisbon, Portugal
'Option Pricing in the European Unions Emission Trading Scheme' - Max Fehr 

10-12 June 2010 - ESF workshop, 'Exploring Epistemic Shifts in Computer Based Environmental Sciences', Aarhus University, Denmark
'Reframing the Reliability of Models: moving from error to quality for use' - Arthur Petersen presented a workshop paper (joint with Leonard Smith)

13 May 2010 - LSE
Improving the IPCC's Uncertainty Management in Assessing Climate Change, Impacts and Responses (event information) - Arthur Petersen

10-14 May 2010 - AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Tucson, Arizona
'Interpretation of Decadal Tropical Cyclone Forecasts for Decision-Support: application to insurance and disaster risk reduction along the US Gulf Coast and the Caribbean' - Falk Niehoerster (Nicola Ranger, Leonard Smith, Falk Niehoerster, Robert Muir-Wood and Howard Kunreuther). 

26-28 April 2010 - ILS Summit Europe, London
'Examining Uncertainties in Climate Models: forecasting the impact of best and worst case climate scenarios on the future of the ILS Market' - Leonard Smith and Pauline Barrieu

9-10 April 2010 - Industrial-Academic Forum on Commodities, Energy Markets, and Emissions Trading, Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada
Talk on the EU ETS work - Max Fehr

29 January 2010 - ILS Summit, New York, USA
'Examining the Uncertainties in Climate Models: forecasting the Impact of best and worst case scenarios on the future of the ILS Market' - Leonard Smith and Pauline Barrieu

15 December 2009 - AGU Fall Meeting 2009, San Francisco, USA
'The Search for Relevant Climate Change Information to Support Adaptation Decision Makers: lessons from reductionism, emergence and the past' - David Stainforth

December 2009 - Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics Seminars, Perth, Australia
'Shadowing the Rotating Annulus' - Falk Niehoerster, Roman Binter, Roland Young and Leonard Smith

17-19 November 2009 - ENSEMBLES Final Symposium, Exeter, UK 
'Establishing Skill in ENSEMBLES Probability Forecast' - Roman Binter, Hailiang Du, Falk Niehoerster and Leonard Smith

17-19 November 2009 - ENSEMBLES Final Symposium, Exeter, UK 
'Skill of Ensemble Seasonal Probabilistic Forecast' poster by Hailiang Du, Falk Niehoerster, Roman Binter and Leonard Smith

November 2009 - 'Challenging the European Climate-Energy package', UK and France
'Managing Extreme Events in a Changing Climate: key questions in the context of UK and EU adaptation policy' - Nicola Ranger

14 October 2009 - LSE
At War with the Weather and Other Extreme Events: managing large-scale risks in a new era of catastrophes (event information) - Howard Kunreuther

28-30 September 2009 - '4 degrees and beyond' workshop, Oxford, UK
'One Two Three More: challenges to describing a warmer world' - Leonard Smith 

13-16 September 2009 - SAMSI 2009-10 Program on Space-time Analysis for Environmental Mapping, Epidemiology and Climate Change
;Experimental Design and Interpretation of Policy-relevant Climate Model Ensembles' -Leonard Smith, opening workshop on Climate Change.

27 August 2009 - ABI Climate Change Data seminar
'Climate Models and their Information Content for the Insurance Industry' - Leonard Smith (with David Stainforth, Ana Lopez and Edward Tredger)

10-12 March 2009 - IARU Scientific Congress, 'Climate Change: global risks, challenges and decisions', Copenhagen
'Adaptation and Insurance: reducing risk and maintaining the insurability of people and property in the face of rising hazards' - Nicola Ranger