Mathematics of Planet Earth
Australia 2013: The conference
8-12 July 2013
Maths for the Planet
Most of the great innovations that have changed the way people live
over the past two centures were enabled by mathematics.
- Prof. Ian Chubb
Maths of Planet Earth Australia: The Conference
Inspiring new ideas, research and collaboration
Few people realise that mathematicians and statisticians
behind the scenes help model the effects of climate change,
uncover terrorism networks, improve our biosecurity,
bulletproof the global financial system and significantly
reduce the causalities of natural disasters.
The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI)
along with five government agencies — CSIRO, Geoscience
Australia, Defence Science and Technology Organisation
(DSTO), Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Bureau of
Meteorology (BoM — several national and international
research organisations, government departments and
centres of excellence brought these unseen heroes of
innovation together, at the recent Maths of Planet Earth
conference in Melbourne.
The conference demonstrated that a solid foundation in the
mathematical sciences underpins Australian innovation
and high quality science. Mathematics and statistics
are critical to the future welfare of our planet.
‘It was a tremendous week; we discussed new ideas, reworked some old ones and created new collaborations,’
said AMSI Director, Prof. Geoff Prince.
CONFERENCE PARTNERS
COMMITTEES
Program Committee
• Bob Anderssen, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
• Jon Borwein, Priority Research Centre for Computer-Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications
• Phil Broadbridge, Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Peter Forrester, Australian Mathematical Society
• Clinton Foster, Geoscience Australia
• Tony Guttmann, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex
Systems
• Bronwyn Harch, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
• Peter May, Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research
• Kerrie Mengersen, Statistical Society of Australia Inc.
• Andy Pitman, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
• Geoff Prince, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (Director)
• Peter Taylor, Australian Mathematical Society
• Christine Sergi, Australian Bureau of Statistics
Organising Committee
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Geoff Prince, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (Director)
Simi Henderson, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
Joanna Wilson, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
Daphane Ng, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
Emily Corbett, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Time
Sunday 7 July
18:0018:30
Registration and welcome reception
Time
Monday 8 July
Tuesday 9 July
8:30
Wednesday 10 July
Thursday 11 July
Registration
9:00
Opening
Chris Budd
Data Assimilation in weather
forecasting
Robert Muir-Wood
Saving lives and money – the second
wave of Catastrophe modelling
David Karoly
Modelling variations in extreme
weather and climate events and
understanding their causes
9:50
David H Bailey
Conquering numerical error
Bronwyn Harch
Data Science: informing insights,
understanding and decision making
relevant to Planet Earth
Simon Barry
Managing Biosecurity for a Planet
at Risk
Brian Kennett
Imaging the Dynamic Earth
11:00
John Cook
The challenges of communicating the
reality of climate change
David Fox
Statistical Science for the Environment
Julie Arblaster
Earth System Models - tools for
understanding climate variability and
change
Marc Parlange
Land-atmosphere exchanges over
complex terrain
11:50
Duncan Young
The Australian Population Census –
Shedding some light on who we are,
what we do and building a brighter
future for all Australians
Graeme Brown
Measures of Australia’s Progress:
Measuring what is Important for
National Progress
Peter Waterhouse
Bioinvasion at the Molecular Level
Kate Evans
Recent strategies and challenges
for simulation and reproducibility in
global climate modelling
Parallel Sessions
Parallel Sessions
Parallel Sessions
Parallel Sessions
Jonathan Borwein
Set the default to “Open”
BioInvasion and BioSecurity
Earth System Modelling
Mitigating Natural Disaster Risk
Mitigating Natural Disaster Risk
Gavin Huttley
The state of reproducible computation
in genomic biology
Sustainability – Environmental
modelling
Realising our subsurface potential
Panel - Reproducibility in
Computational Scientific Research
A Data-Based View of Our World
10:40
Morning tea
12:40
13:30
Lunch
Complex (and Dynamical) Systems
Scientific Data Mining
A Data-Based View of Our World
15:00
15:30
Earth System Modelling
Scientific Data Mining
Afternoon tea
Round table:
Maths of Planet Earth
Parallel Sessions
Parallel Sessions
Parallel Sessions
Sustainability – Environmental
modelling
BioInvasion and BioSecurity
Earth System Modelling
Mitigating Natural Disaster Risk
Mitigating Natural Disaster Risk
A Data-Based View of Our World
Realising our subsurface potential
Earth System Modelling
Sustainability – Environmental
modelling
Complex (and Dynamical) Systems
Realising our subsurface potential
Population censuses and the human
face of Australia
Sustainability – Environmental
modelling
End
17:00
Poster session and networking drinks
17:30
18:00
MPE photography competition
exhibition
Can maths save our planet? Panel
discussion and Q&A
Public Lecture
18:30
Conference dinner, with dinner talk
from Dr Alex Zelinsky
19:00
20:00
21:00
22:00
Time
Friday 12 July
7:30
Registration
8:30
Mark Lawrence
The new post-crisis paradigm for financial risk management
9:15
Mark Burgman
Experts, judgment and the intelligence game
10:00
Johann van der Merwe
Journey into uncharted territory: ‘protecting the conservation values of a sensitive area’
10:45
Morning tea
11:15
PANEL: Talking risk: planning for the future
12:40
Lunch
14:00
Conference End
DAY ONE – MONDAY
Australia’s Chief Scientist and Patron of Mathematics of
Planet Earth, Prof. Ian Chubb, opened the conference with
an inspiring address.
“Mathematics provides the vital underpinning of the
knowledge economy essential in the physical sciences,
technology, business, financial services and areas of ICT,” he
said.
Prof. Chubb highlighted the declining interest in maths
among Australia’s secondary school students, tracing the
root cause to a lack of supply and support for adequately
trained maths teachers. He warned if Australia continues on
its current trajectory, we won’t have the mathematicians
we need to innovate and achieve.
This heightened sense of urgency comes only weeks shy of
the Chief Scientist announcing the new National Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Strategy aimed
at addressing these issues.
Our first pleanary speaker, Dr David Bailey from the
University of California, David, presented Conquering
Numerical Error, he cautioned that “the world is not
producing enough people with serious training in the area
of numerical analysis”.
We were then entertained by Duncan Young, who heads
the Population Census Program at the Australian Bureau of
Statistics. Young presented new targeted products
produced by ABS that aim to involve a wider audience with
the importance and usefulness of census data.
Run that Town and Spotlight are interactive tools built to
engage the public with census data. In Young’s words:
“They show them [the public] that statistics ain’t all that
bad!”
Our last plenary speaker for the day was John Cook, a
Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change
Institute at the University of Queensland. Cook knows that
sometimes in science the equations may be close to perfect
but, they don’t quite add up in the minds of the general
public.
He said that ‘converting abstract statistics into concrete
concepts, which laypeople can understand and relate to,
has become crucial to communicating the realities of
climate change and other sciences.’ And it is something
that he a has passion for and a knack for doing.
DAY TWO – TUESDAY
AMSI Director Prof. Geoff Prince, welcomed delegates and introduced a stellar
line up of international and national speakers.
CSIRO’s Dr Bronwyn Harch explained how data science can inform our insights
and help us understand and make decisions relevant to planet earth.
She went on to highlight how CSIRO are using sophisticated mathematical models
for the early detection of Alzheimer’s. “Mathematics is involved in every stage of
the decision making value chain,” Dr Harch said.
On the subject of mathematics Dr Harch said: “I’ve always found that maths
helps me make sense of the changes I see around me – like how changes in
rainfall and temperature have an impact on my Dad’s crops in southern
Queensland – where I grew up. I did advanced maths in high school because I
enjoyed it and was good at it.
“In the 1980s, environmental science was popular. I had just completed a degree
in environmental science and teaching, and also enjoyed mathematics and
realised I needed an edge that would help my career.”
Prof. Chris Budd, University of Bath, has had an infinity with mathematics since
he can remember and he spoke on how the Fast Fourier Transform and Kalman
Filters assimilate large data sets.
He also highlighted the use of super computers in weather forecasting for the UK
MET Office.
DAY THREE – WEDNESDAY
A lovely — yet rather chilly — blue-skied Melbourne morning greeted our four
plenary speakers.
Dr Robert Muir-Wood opened the proceedings with his talk on the human side of
catastrophe modelling; Dr Simon Barry explained the unique aspects of biosecurity
research for Australia; and Julia Arblaster introduced us to Earth systems models for
understanding climate variability and change. Finally, Peter Waterhouse brought us
down to the microscale with his talk on modelling virus invasion and defence in
plants.
Insurance companies use catastrophe models to predict loss. Dr Robert Muir-Wood,
Chief Research Officer, Risk Management Solutions, has an alternate use for these
models. He aims to answer the questions, how many casualties will there be in a
certain catastrophic event? How are the livelihoods of survivors affected? His
research sparked the interest of journalist Pia Akerman from The Australian, see the
‘In the media’ section of this report.
The MPE Photo Competition Exhibition delighted delegates and the general public
alike; as did Dr Mark Stafford Smith’s Public Lecture ‘A future earth for our children:
Maths for the Planet.’
PUBLIC LECTURE
Attended by 250 people Wednesday’s public lecture by Dr Mark Stafford Smith, A Future Earth for our children: maths for
the planet proved a popular topic for the conference’s public event. Describing himself as a lapsed mathematician, Dr
Stafford Smith, Science Director Climate Adaptation Flagship, CSIRO spoke about the challenges facing us as we move
towards a sustainable future, and how the application of mathematical sciences has and will continue to aid this process.
As Science Director Climate Adaptation Flagship he oversees a highly interdisciplinary program of research on many
aspects of adapting to climate change, as well as regularly interacting with national and international policy issues. Dr
Stafford Smith has over 30 years’ experience in drylands systems ecology, management and policy, including senior roles
such as CEO of the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre in Alice Springs.
His significant international roles include co-chairing the 2012 Planet Under Pressure: New Knowledge Towards Solutions
conference on global environmental change in London in the lead up to Rio+20. He has recently been appointed as Chair
of the inaugural Future Earth Science Committee, which aims to help coordinate global change research worldwide.
DAY FOUR – THURSDAY
Flamboyant Prof. David Karoly, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System
Science/University of Melbourne, kicked off MPE today with an informationpacked presentation on modelling variations in extreme climate events and
understanding their causes.
Prof. Karoly spoke about ‘The Angry Hot Summer 2012-13′ Australians recently
experienced and also launched his new citizen project Weather@HomeANZ.
Then, ANU Professor Brian Kennett took us through the imaging of earth’s subsurface through seismic tomography. He was followed by Macelwane medalist
Prof. Marc Parlange, EFLUM, presenting his research on alpine hydrology in the
Swiss Alps using large eddy simulation (LES).
Dr Kate Evans, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, told us how high resolution
models performed by ‘Titan’-ic computing has enabled her team to observe how
large scale events in Asia modulate small events in the U.S.
The conference dinner was held on Thursday night and Dr Alex Zelinsky, Chief
Defence Scientist and head of DSTO, addressed delelgates.
Dr Zelinsky highlighted that mathematics is part and parcel of everyday life and
as the scientific community we must do more to encourage kids to study science,
technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
DAY FIVE – FRIDAY
The final day of the Maths of Planet Earth Conference, drew to a close what was
an exciting and inspirational week.
Dr Mark Lawrence, Mark Lawrence Group (and AMSI Board Member) introduced
the definition of “risk” from a financial management angle. He spoke about the
new post-crisis paradigm for financial risk management and how this has
fundamentally changed in the largest banks, reflecting crucial lessons from risk
management failures in the Global Financial Crisis.
He said that key changes include the requirement to carefully define the total
amount of aggregate risk that the organisation is able and willing to accept in
persuit of its business objectives (its “risk appetite”) and link this to the strategy
and detailed business plans for growth; and an explicit focus on ensuring a strong
institutional “risk culture”.
Prof. Mark Burgman, Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis, gave a
colourful presentation about the role that expert judgement plays in science,
examining whether experience and qualifications are linked with accurate well
thought out judgement – he said the importance is in understanding the question!
MPE’s final speaker Johann van der Merwe, Chevron Australia, delivered some
eye-opening figures on the loss of biodiversity within Australia. His inspiring talk
covered a journey into unchartered territory, protecting the conservation values
of a sensitive area – Barrow Island in Western Australia.
FEEDBACK
THE PLENARY SPEAKERS
Great conference, lots of interactions, and this
conference felt like being part of a mathematics
family.
-Steven Lord
DSTO
Excellent
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor
Not Applicable
THE VARIETY OF TOPICS
Excellent
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor
High quality plenaries, mostly from speakers
outside my research area but with very
interesting ideas.
- Dr Peter Dobrohotoff
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Not Applicable
WOULD YOU ATTEND AN ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THIS
TYPE AGAIN?
The chance to see mathematics at work in
different applications, meet mathematicians and
subject specialists and encounter challenging
issues and avenues for advancing use of methods
on practical problems
- Mr Stephen Horn
SSAI
Yes
No
Everything ran like clockwork. The conference team
members were all so friendly and helpful and the
conference plenary speakers were excellent. The
sessions ran smoothly too and the catering was
amazing! Thanks for a great conference!
- Dr Sandra Johnson
Queensland University of Technology
I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO NETWORK WITH PEOPLE THAT
I DO NOT NORMALLY ENCOUNTER
Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Not applicable
The variety of research topics, and the opportunity
to hear from, and communicate with people from
across a range of industries about current issues in
Australia.
- Ms Josette Loomes
Australian Bureau of Statistics
THE CONTENT OF CONFERENCE SESSIONS
Excellent
Best thing about the
conference was…
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor
Not Applicable
Multiple disciplines in one conference
- Dr Chris Allen
Royal Botanic Garden (Sydney)
IN THE MEDIA
IN THE MEDIA
TOP TWEETS…
@mariposajanine – David Bailey says that the world is not producing enough people with serious training in the area of
numerical analysis #MPEAU
@DiscoverAMSI – If you don’t debunk a myth properly you can actually add to the myth, says Cook #MPEAU
@MariEricksen - #MPEAU @DiscoverAMSI Findings could lead to delay the onset of alzheimers by 5 years, nearly
halving the cost for Australia @AlzheimersAus
@CSIROnews @DiscoverAMSI #MPEAU CSIRO on Biosecurity: If it’s detectable it’s not eradicable and if it’s eradicable
it’s not detectable! LOL
@DiscoverAMSI – Previous plenary speakers refer to ‘Angry summers’, Kate Evans looks at “Flustered springs” #MPEAU
@DiscoverAMSI Julie Arblaster: We don’t have a crystal ball to tell us what human choices will be made; we need to
model the different possible choices #MPEAU
@DiscoverAMSI – “Understanding business models” and their risks at MPE Conference Melbourne #MPEAU
@FinancialReview
CONFERENCE COMMUNIQUE
Communiqué from the participants of the Maths of Planet Earth Conference
Global challenges: The vital role of maths and stats
This week mathematicians, statisticians and scientists from the public and private sectors gathered to discuss many of the
critical challenges facing our planet.
Although the time scales of these challenges are often very different, they are all materially and intellectually urgent.
Along with our physical, biological and social knowledge of the planet, our mathematical skills are indispensable to
progress.
The conference, led by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute [AMSI], brought together five government agencies,
along with national and international researchers, government departments and centres of excellence.
Over five exciting days discussing new ideas, research and collaboration allowed us to examine the vital role of
mathematics and statistics in areas such as
•
•
•
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Delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease
The detection of cells in terrorist networks
Building the next generation of climate change models
Managing the toughest biosecurity standards in the world
Bullet-proofing the global financial system
Modelling natural disasters to reduce human casualties
Some of the challenges we worked on are of humanity’s own making and some are not, but collectively they affect our
lives and those of our fellow species.
Earth system science, sustainability, financial risk modelling and management, climate change science, data mining,
biosecurity, natural disaster mitigation, social policy – each of these areas is under intense development. Yet the
fundamental role played by the mathematical sciences is generally unknown. Perhaps this is because the words
“mathematics” and “statistics” do not appear once in the names of these areas, and the mathematical scientists who work
in these areas are known by other titles.
The public, those learning mathematics in schools and universities and those making public policy must be made aware
that mathematical scientists are pivotal to innovation.
Why is this important? Because without recognising the role of the mathematical sciences in meeting these challenges, we
threaten the future supply of mathematically capable professionals able to work on current and future global challenges.
Australia cannot afford this loss of capacity.
We, the delegates in attendance, wish to make two important points to the Australian community:
We will strive for a safer and better understood planet through the development and application of mathematical
and statistical research. As a community of scientists and professionals we have the principal responsibility for the
public awareness of our work, so important for the inspiration of tomorrow’s researchers.
Australian policy makers and governments must address declining interest in advanced mathematics and statistics
in our schools and universities. All Australian children deserve to have qualified maths teachers and they should be
engaged with the work that mathematically capable professionals perform, especially that which has an
immediate and material benefit to the planet.
CONCLUSION
The conference demonstrated that a solid foundation in the mathematical sciences underpins Australian innovation and high
quality science. Mathematics and statistics are critical to the future welfare of our planet.
Though mathematical skills are indispensable to progress, the Australian mathematical population is in serious decline. 'The
problem is, in part, due to the words “mathematics” and “statistics” not appearing in our job titles: mathematical sciences do
not appear on the radars of parents, students and career advisors,' Prof. Geoff Prince, said.
Conference participants drafted a communiqué to be released at the close of the conference. In it they said that: 'Australian
policy makers must address declining interest in advanced mathematics and statistics in our schools. Our school children must
be engaged to the varied work that mathematically capable professionals perform. And they deserve to have qualified maths
teachers.'
'As a community of scientists and professionals we have the principal
responsibility for the public awareness of our work. We must inspire
tomorrow's researchers by engaging them today.'
MPE Australia Program Partners
Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
Simi Henderson
Program Manager (Research and Higher Education)
c/o University of Melbourne VIC 3010
simi@amsi.org.au
www.mathsofplanetearth.org.au
www.amsi.org.au