Tamsin Edwards is a Lecturer in Physical Geography at King’s College London. Her research looks at how we confident we are in predictions from climate models about the range of possible futures we might face. She is particularly interested in how Greenland and Antarctica are responding to global warming. Tamsin regularly advises the UK Government on sea level rise and provides expert comment to national and international media. She is an award-winning communicator of climate science, including through Twitter (@flimsin) and her blog for the Public Library of Science, PLoS (blogs.plos.org/models).

Talk: Polar Thinking

We like to frame climate change as a black and white issue: are you with us or against us? Is it our fault, or is it all natural? Are we screwed, or is there nothing to worry about? Is the polar ice melting or growing?

In this talk I’ll tell the real story of climate science – how opposites can coexist and the importance of looking at the shades of grey. This is a personal journey into the science and the life of a scientist – how climate science works, how to deal with tribal battles for the climate change narrative, and how we as scientists try to make sense of a staggeringly complex planet.