The session aims to present novel changepoint detection methods for environmental applications. Specifically, some new methods will be presented, all well motivated from problems practitioners face in environmental datasets. A discussant will bridge the recent papers to the larger body of literature and provide perspective amongst wider challenges for environmental problems.

With the evolving climate due to the continuing emission of greenhouse gasses and effects from various policy decisions, changes within observed environmental data are inevitable. Methods for detecting changepoints, which are abrupt shifts in the underlying distribution of a statistical process, continue to be key analysis tools. Changepoint detection is crucial across a wide variety of environmental inferences, from millenium-scale data in ice cores to sub-daily fluctuations in air pollution.  These different scales and data structures motivate novel changepoint detection methods.  This session highlights some recent advances in changepoint detection and their uses in a variety of environmental areas. Specifically, the session presents 1) a model that detects changes in the distribution of phytoplankton taxa, 2) a study on the changes of tropical storm counts in the North Atlantic Basin, and 3) methods to detect changes in air temperatures.

Organiser: Dr Thomas Fisher 

Chair: Colin Gallagher 

Speaker: Dr Thomas Fisher 

Speaker: Robert Lund 

Speaker: Xueheng Shi 

Discussant:  Prof. Rebecca Killick