Abstract

Main page for meeting.

If you have a question about this meeting, please contact Nicholas Watkins.

The Natural Complexity programme of the British Antarctic Survey is organising a conference entitled “Natural Complexity – data and theory in dialogue” to take place on 13-17 August 2007 at Clare College, Cambridge. Inspired by the question: “What use is complexity science to global environmental issues” the meeting aims to highlight the contribution that complexity theories are already making to high-priority problems in the earth system sciences and to present them with new challenges.

The Meeting will begin with a 1-day symposium at the Law Faculty introducing some topical earth-system problems, aspects of complexity, and intersection points between the two.

Themes throughout the following 4 days will include:

Modern nonlinear time series analysis and dynamical systems

Beyond Brownian motion – random walks and anomalous diffusion

Collective phenomena – networks and extremes

Emergence, self-organisation, and pattern formation

The emphasis throughout the 5 days will be on the relationship of complexity theory to real-world observations and problems. We anticipate that both experts and non-experts in complexity will attend, so to aid dialogue each day will start with tutorials that collectively will cover some of the essential concepts and tools of complexity.