Dr. Kroum Batchvarov is an Associate Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the Department of Anthropology and the Maritime Studies Program at University of Connecticut. Dr. Batchvarov's main research focus is maritime archaeology of 17th-century seafaring, specializing in English and Dutch ship construction and Black Sea seafaring and shipbuilding. Batchvarov is part of a team of scientists on The Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project. Since its inception in 2015, The Black Sea MAP, one of the largest maritime archaeological projects ever staged, has been investigating the changes in the ancient environment of the Black Sea region including the impact of sea level change during the last glacial cycle and interconnectivity through the millennia.

Tropical cyclones in models: Subseasonal forecasts, climatology and new diagnostics

Suzana J. Camargo, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

This talk will discuss the characteristics of tropical cyclones in climate models, which are used in projections of TC activity under anthropogenic climate change. Some characteristics of TC climatology improve with model resolution, but not all do, and the improvement is not uniform across models. Using a large number of climate models, the relationship of standard TC diagnostics with the mean climate state is analyzed. Models with the same resolution can have a very different TC climatology, even if their large-scale environments are very similar. In order to understand these differences, two new diagnostics were developed that can give insight on how to improve models' TC climatology, as well as the reliability of their projections.

In the second part of this talk the ability of the current generation of models in forecasting tropical cyclones (TCs) - hurricanes, typhoons - weeks in advance will be discussed. There is predictability in this time scales due to the well-known modulation of TC activity by the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), with a higher level of TC activity when the MJO is in its active phase in a region. As the models' skill in forecasting the MJO has improved in the last few years, the possibility of forecasting TC formation weeks in advance can be examined. The questions we will discuss are: How well do models simulate the MJO-TC relationship? Do models have skill in forecasting the probability of TC formation weeks in advance? Is the model skill dependent on the amplitude of the MJO?

Not all who travel are immigrants: Asian seafarers and the limits of citizenship

Taken from work on the first book length survey of Asian American maritime history. The project expands upon the inter-imperial history of Chinese, Filipino and South Asian migration beyond the constructs of immigration and citizenship. In this revisionist design, the research establishes a trans-colonial historical framework to examine the development of maritime traditions that came to inform the patterns of Asian seafaring and maritime occupations migration encountered by Americans from the eighteenth century onward. These histories unmoor Asian America from its continental preoccupation.

At the Interface of Tribe and State: The "Fourth Image" in World Politics - Tribal Homelands, Expanding States, and the Foundations of International Order