Colloquium: Dr. Jeffrey B. Weiss, University of Colorado

The climate system is a complex multi-scale dynamical system. The natural variability of the climate systems takes the form of coherent spatio-temporal fluctuations which can be considered as fluctuations in a thermodynamically non-equilibrium steady-state. These fluctuations manifest themselves as climate oscillations with names such as the El-Niño Southern Oscillation, the Madden-Julien Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Climate oscillations have large human impacts and their response to human-caused climate change is poorly understood. In this talk, I will review the basic physics of the climate system and describe work on applying recent advances in non-equilibrium statistical physics to study climate oscillations.