Where is Ray Bradley?

November 29, 2007

Well, I'm in Bergen, Norway right now (it's dark, rainy...) where I
am at a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Bjerknes
Center for Climate Research (Bjerknes was a famous Norwegian
meteorologist).  Tomorrow I go to Barcelona, Spain to give a talk to
the Catalan Academy of Sciences on climate change & water resources,
then I will visit Tortosa (~100 miles south of Barcelona, on the
coast) and see the Ebro River delta, which is one of the main bird
sanctuaries in western Europe, but now vulnerable due to rising sea-level.

This has been a busy travel year for me... writing it all out makes
me realise that I've been on the road far too much lately...

I started in February, going to Boulder, CO for a scientific review
of a research institute at the University of Colorado.  From there I
flew directly to Zurich and on to Bern Switzerland for another
Scientific Advisory Board meeting, for the Swiss National Climate
Center.  Then back to Zurich for a trip to Bergen, for a short
research meeting related to a proposal we were writing to study
volcanoes in the Arctic, and their effects on climate.

In March, I went to San Jose, Costa Rica for a workshop I helped to
organise, with The Nature Conservancy, on climate change and tropical
montane forests.  Our discussions focused on what will happen to the
tropical forests in mountainous areas like Costa Rica (along with all
the birds and other species) if climate changes due to greenhouse
gases.  We had a stay in Monteverde Forest Reserve, and met the
scientists who studied the golden toad--now extinct, perhaps due to
changes in climate (though via some complex web of interactions with
fungi and other nasty things).

In April, I was in Vienna to receive the Hans Oeschger Medal from the
European Geosciences Union (Oeschger was a famous Swiss climate
scientist), then on to Venice to see the effects of rising sea-level
& what the city is doing to keep the high water out of the Venice lagoon.

In June I went to Peru, to the Quelccaya Ice Cap, SE of Cuzco, where
we have research project on the climate of the ice cap.  We camped
out on the edge of the ice cap at 17000ft, and one day I hiked up to
the ice cap summit at 18,500ft--half way up in the atmosphere (~500mb
level)--where we have a weather station recording conditions on the
ice.  The ice cap is right on the top of the mountain range
(Cordilllera Vilcanota) so from the summit you could look down into
the Amazon Basin to the east.

Then in August I went to NW Norway (to the Lofoten Islands) to do
research with my students, on lake sediments (for paleoclimate studies).

After that I was in Denver & Washington for research meetings, then
back to Europe to give a talk at Nicolas Copernicus University in
Torun, Poland, about 3 hours by train to the west of Warsaw.

And now I'm back here in western Norway.  Hopefully, this is my last
trip this year.  I will get back on December 5th.

My next trip will be to Mexico in January--but for a holiday in
Mexico City, & Zihiuatenejo on the Pacific coast!  Then in February
to Santa Fe for a meeting on solar variations and climate
change.   After that it gets a bit hazy...

Not sure what you want for a video clip, but there's a streaming
video presentation under keynote talks, here (note--microphone is off
for first 20 seconds or so).
http://www.holivar2006.org/abstracts/viewabstract.php#keynote
Otherwise, I have a DVD of a talk I gave at the Aspen Global Change
Institute I can bring in when I get back.

ray