What is happening to our weather?

 Devastating storms, forest fires, flash floods. Vulnerable communities across the world have succumbed to all of these and more in recent months. Increasingly they are asking,  "Is this linked to climate change?" This talk will address this question and discuss some exciting new developments in climate science which is allowing us to delve further than ever before into how and why our weather is changing.

Peter Stott is Science Fellow in Attribution at the Met Office Hadley Centre and Professor of Detection and Attribution at the University of Exeter.  At the Met Office, he leads a research team developing methods for attributing the causes of extreme weather events to human and natural factors. At Exeter University, he leads a project called Climate Stories which brings together poets, printmakers, singer-songwriters  and climate scientists to develop new ways of thinking about climate change. He is a co-editor of annual reports which explain extreme weather events from a climate perspective and has worked on the last three reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate  Change, the UN body charged with assessing the scientific understanding of climate change. Peter has a strong interest in public outreach and engagement and appeared in the recent BBC documentary presented by Sir David Attenborough, Climate Change: The Facts.