Call for Participation

Our meeting will focus on exploring, in interactive workshops, the issues that decision-makers and researchers face in addressing climate and climate disruption issues. Because we are reaching out to the broadest practical community, we will intersperse the workshops with focused, plenary overviews. We are accepting abstract submissions for posters and talks to support the development of discussions in the workshops. The outcome of the workshops will be consensus white papers delineating the key issues. There are three themes that will be explored in plenary sessions:

  • Climate and Climate Change: Lessons and Predictions
  • Public Health and Climate Disruption
  • Adaptation Strategies and Issues

Each of these themes will be explored in a set of small, cyber-enabled workshops. The workshops will focus on particular aspects of these themes. We have established several cross-cutting areas of inquiry or “pathways” for the discussion of the three principal themes. These workshops show varying degrees of overlap. When you register, you will be asked to identify which areas you will be most interested in attending. You will also have the opportunity to make actual or virtual presentations in those areas. The virtual presentations will be visible on the GAIA website during and after the workshop. These workshop pathways are:

  • Extreme Weather Events
  • Food Security
  • Water Quality
  • Air Quality
  • Energy Availability and Cost
  • Managing and Understanding Risk
  • Data, Models, and Decision Aids
  • Disease and Health Threats
  • Infrastructure Needs and Impacts
  • Economic Impacts

In addition to the publication of contributed and invited papers in a refereed book and a special section in the journal Earth Science Informatics, we will develop a series of reviewed white papers that will capture the “top-ten” issues in the field. Your participation is welcomed because we need to capture a variety of perspectives on the impact of climate disruption.

Submitting Your Contribution

There are two key aspects to the GAIA experience.

  1. The first is the usual “in workshop” contribution. This can be an invited presentation, a contributed talk or poster, or your contribution to the workshop white papers.
  2. There is also a second way you can contribute. As a workshop participant, you will have the ability to create your own virtual user area. You will be able to post your work there and can choose to allow other participants to see that work.You will also be able to contribute a virtual “poster.” The virtual poster might be a paper, poster, presentation, or visualization. These materials can be in a non-traditional format and will continue to be part of the GAIA web site. We will link to these virtual “posters” from our GAIA web site. We offer you this opportunity to display your work and surface your interests and issues. In addition, we plan to hold a traditional poster session that will remain available throughout the meeting.

Presentation Submissions

Presentations offered to working groups should be of interest to the specific group. You should indicate on the submission which particular theme area you would like to present in. Presentations offered for plenary presentation should be broad, comprehensive, and of interest to the entire community. Presentations may, for example, consist solely of slides or include visualizations, data sets, or other information and are designed to inform working group discussion or provide context. Although not required, a formal paper would be welcomed. Note that because the GAIA workshops will have very broad attendance, overviews will be welcomed.

Abstracts

Presentation and poster abstracts are solicited during the registration process. Workshop registrants who indicate an interest in submitting an abstract during registration will be contacted for further information. Presenters are reminded that submitted abstracts must be cleared for public release, non-proprietary, and approved for unlimited distribution. Abstracts will be made available on the GAIA web site. (Download the Abstract Template.) Abstracts should be sent to gaia@jhuapl.edu.

Workshop materials can be uploaded to an area accessible to you once you have registered. You will have access to this area during the meeting and can “show” this material to other participants during the workshop sessions. Further details are provided at http://gaia.jhuapl.edu/collaboratory.

Abstracts, posters, and presentations may be submitted through April 1, 2011.