Multi-Scale Mathematics for Mitigating Severe Environmental Events

恶劣的天气，伴随着暴雨和强风，是最近发生的戏剧性的陆地和海岸洪水以及英国海岸强烈的海滩和悬崖侵蚀的原因。在2012-2013年和2013-2014年的冬天，英国都发生了严重的环境灾难。对强降雨和风暴的预报以及对河流洪水和风暴潮以及海岸侵蚀的预报是一项重大挑战。在预测降雨量和降雨量、风暴潮有多高以及海浪和风将从哪个方向袭击海岸线等方面存在不确定性，这些都是这一挑战的核心。气候变化加剧了这一挑战和其他环境挑战，迫切需要加以解决。正如政府间气候变化专门委员会的最新报告所证实的那样，海平面上升和风暴强度加在一起，很可能会对海滩和悬崖以及河口造成更多的海岸侵蚀。然而，很明显，仍然存在相当大的不确定性。为了应对严重环境事件的预测和缓解带来的挑战，需要解决许多科学和技术问题。这些共同要素包括：涉及广泛空间和时间尺度的现象；连续实体和离散实体之间的相互作用；需要从确定性预测转向概率预测，以及从预测转向控制；极端事件的特征和采样；通过过滤将模型与观测合并；模型简化和参数估计。他们也同样需要改进的数学模型和适应高性能计算机体系结构的改进的数值方法。由于所有这些方面都以数学为基础，显然，新的数学方法可以为应对严重事件带来的挑战做出重大贡献。为了实现这一点，具有相关专业知识的数学家与环境科学家和环境研究的最终用户密切互动是至关重要的。目前，英国正遭受着这种类型的有限互动。因此，我们建议建立一个新的网络--数学预见--它将在应用数学界的研究人员与环境科学界选定的战略领域的研究人员和政府机构之间建立牢固的联系。为实现我们的目标而建议开展的活动包括：(I)三次大会；(Ii)三次数学与工业相结合的讲习班，参与者在讲习班中提出挑战；(Iii)以数学问题为重点的讲习班；(Iv)向公众展示所发展的科学成果的宣传项目；(V)可行性项目；以及(Vi)为用户群体举办的讲习班，向政府机构宣传网络的进展情况。

Severe weather, with heavy rainfall and strong winds, has been the cause of recent dramatic land and coastal flooding, and of strong beach and cliff erosion along the British coast. Both the winters of 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 have seen severe environmental disasters in the UK. The prediction of severe rainfall and storms and its use to forecast river flooding and storm surges, as well as coastal erosion, poses a significant challenge. Uncertainties in the prediction of where and how much precipitation will fall, how high storm surges will be and from which direction waves and wind will attack coast lines, lie at the heart of this challenge. This and other environmental challenges are exacerbated by changing climate and need to be addressed urgently. As the latest IPCC reports confirms, sea level rise and storm intensity combined are very likely to cause more coastal erosion of beaches and cliffs, and of estuaries. However, it is also clear that there remains considerable uncertainty.To address the challenges posed by the prediction and mitigation of severe environmental events, many scientific and technical issues need to be tackled. These share common elements: phenomena involving a wide range of spatial and temporal scales; interaction between continuous and discrete entities; need to move from deterministic to probabilistic prediction, and from prediction to control; characterisation and sampling of extreme events; merging of models with observations through filtering; model reduction and parameter estimation. They also share a dual need for improved mathematical models and for improved numerical methods adapted to high-performance computer architectures. Since all these aspects are underpinned by mathematics, it is clear that new mathematical methods can make a major contribution to addressing the challenges posed by severe events. To achieve this, it is crucial that mathematicians with the relevant expertise interact closely with environmental scientists and with end-users of environmental research. At present, the UK suffers from limited interactions of this type. We therefore propose to establish a new Network - Maths Foresees - that will forge strong ties between researchers in the applied mathematics community with researchers in selected strategic areas of the environmental science community and governmental agencies. The activities proposed to reach our objectives include:(i) three general assemblies,(ii) three mathematics-with-industry style workshops, in which the stakeholders put forward challenges,(iii) focussed workshops on mathematical issues,(iv) outreach projects in which the science developed is demonstrated in an accessible and conceptual way to the general public,(v) feasibility projects, and(vi) workshops for user groups to disseminate the network progress to government agencies.