Prof. David Battisti of the University of Washington will deliver the 2010 Henry Kendall Memorial Lecture. In October 2009 Prof. Battisti gave a presentation at MIT on "Climate Engineering with Aerosols—Precictable Consequences?" as a part of the ESI/MITEI/CGCS Symposium on Engineering a Cooler Earth: Can We Do It? Should We Try?; his talk slides and a video from that event are available.

About the Speaker: David Battisti is the Tamaki Endowed Chair and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. His research is focused on understanding the natural variability of the climate system. He is especially interested in understanding how the interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, land and sea ice lead to variability in climate on time scales from seasonal to decades. His previous research includes coastal oceanography, the physics of the El Nino phenomenon, midlatitude atmosphere/ocean variability and variability in the coupled atmosphere/sea ice system in the Arctic. Battisti is presently working to improve the El Nino models and their forecast skill, to understand the mechanisms responsible for the drought cycles in the Sahel, and to better understand the monsoons. He is also working on the impacts of climate variability and climate change on food production in Mexico, Indonesia and China. Battisti has served on numerous national and international science panels. He served for five years as co-chair of the Science Steering Committee for the U.S. Program on Climate and is co-author of several international science plans. He has published over 80 papers in peer-review journals in atmospheric sciences and oceanography, and twice been awarded distinguished teaching awards.

Several previous Kendall Memorial Lectures can be viewed on MIT World.

About the Series: The Henry W. Kendall Memorial Lecture Series honors the memory of Professor Henry W. Kendall (1926-1999) who was the J.A. Stratton professor of physics at MIT. Professor Kendall received the Nobel Prize in 1990 for research that provided the first experimental evidence for quarks. He had a deep commitment to understanding and finding solutions to the multiple environmental problems facing the world today and in the future. The permanently endowed Kendall Lecture allows MIT faculty and students to be introduced by leading researchers to forefront areas in global change science.

A founding member of the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1969, he served as its chair for 25 years. Prof. Kendall was deeply involved with arms control and nuclear power safety issues. He played a leading role in organizing scientific community statements on global problems, including the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity in 1992 and the Call for Action at the Kyoto Climate Summit in 1997. His publications included, "Energy Strategies: Toward a Solar Future" (1980), "Beyond the Freeze" (1982), "Fallacy of Star Ways" (1985), and "Crisis Stability and Nuclear War" (1988). He received the Bertram Russell Society award in 1992, the Environmental Leadership award from Tufts University's Lincol Filene Center in 1991, the Ettore Majorana-Erice Science for Peace prize in 1994, the Award for Leadership in Environmental Stewardship from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in 1997 and the Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Services from the American Physical Society in 1998.

The Kendall Memorial Lecture is presented by the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Center for Global Change Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A reception will follow in the EAPS Department, MIT 54-923.