Gordon Research Conference on Climate Engineering

Climate engineering, also called geoengineering, is the idea of deliberately intervening in Earth’s global radiation budget with the goal of reducing some of the risks of accumulating greenhouse gases. The two most frequently discussed possibilities are injecting aerosols into the stratosphere or adding aerosols to low marine clouds, both of which would reflect more sunlight to space; other possibilities include artificially thinning cirrus cloud cover to increasing outgoing longwave radiation. This conference will focus on the scientific questions associated with this set of technologies with the goal of fostering a better understanding of their efficacy and risks.

Conference organisers are David Keith and Alan Robock.

The conference will be held on 23-28 July 2017 at Sunday River Newry, ME, USA. Note that applications for this meeting must be submitted by 25 June 2017.

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Gordon conference have been held since the 1930s, are among the most prestigious general series of scientific conferences. The Gordon organization now has more than 200 conferences a year. The conferences are primarily US-based though they often get a global audience, and now the locations are gradually extending globally. The hallmark of the conferences is that they bring together a relatively small group of people, typically about 150, in an informal and isolated setting. The conferences feature a small number of long talks with extended time for questions by speakers who are typically leaders in the field and open-ended poster sessions at which all participate. There is a substantial amount of unscheduled time each day which allows unstructured interaction between participants. The conferences often help to define a scientific field. Once established they often continue for decades with conference chair people selected by a vote of the participants. The conferences operate under the "Chatham House Rule," free discussion with no attribution and limited press.