New Horizons in Environmental Mechanics

As science and scientists become more and more specialized it is important to remember and celebrate those scientists who are able to straddle multiple disciplines and to make important contributions in all of them.

John Finnigan is one such scientist. Over John’s fifty-year career he has seen transformative advances in the field of environmental mechanics: the quantitative description of the interaction between the biosphere and the atmosphere and he has made contributions from canopy and boundary-layer turbulence to flow in complex terrain as well as to complex systems involving the interactions between the biosphere, the atmosphere and society.

Over recent decades, the existential problem of climate change has added urgency to the task of integrating these disparate areas of research and filling the knowledge gaps that this fusion reveals.

We are therefore taking this opportunity to convene a workshop to celebrate the life and science of John with people who worked with him, were inspired by his work and approach to science, and are his friends.

The invitation-only workshop will consist of talks covering the range of John’s scientific interests. The talks will review of our current understanding while demonstrating some of the outstanding issues in the subject, leading on to plenty of time for discussion. The hope is that we can outline directions for future research in the range of scientific topics that together describe the essential coupling of the biosphere and atmosphere.

We hope that this time together will provide an opportunity to discuss how we can work together as scientists and the power of working across disciplines. It will also present an opportunity to see how we can bring back the fun, wonder and enthusiasm to science and stop treating it simply as a costed, timed, and predictable set of tasks.

The idea is to create an atmosphere at the same time serious, scientific, open, collaborative and humorous. Stories about John will be especially appreciated.