ExtremeWeatherCongress

The ExtremeWeatherCongress, started in 2006 and taking place ever since,  is a huge long-term effort with an extensive press-coverage and alongside presence in media-channels, newspapers and social-networks, widening the interest in conference topics supplemented by comprehensive fact-sheets about the actual state of the climate in general and especially in Germany. It is organized and moderated by Frank Böttcher.

Citation:

ExtremeWeatherCongress has a long tradition and is a milestone in climate communication. It is a good example that a continuous effort is worth trying and can be very successful and become institutional. The conference is highly relevant, because different groups of society are involved: science, communication, politics, educators, media.

An important element is the involvement of schools, representing the future audience, potential students and scientists. It also became an important activity in schools. Extension of trainings to schools is providing broader audience and it is going beyond traditional standard format of just congress event. As we all know, the children are the future, so they will learn about the weather events and how to prevent and how to behave in such cases.

ExtremeWeatherCongress (boettcher.science)
ExtremeWeatherCongress (boettcher.science)

The ExtremeWeatherCongress has built a significant audience, both of media people and members of the public, over more than 15 years. It became a strong channel of communication about climate science with the aim to make climate research accessible to the public and media, for discussion. Since the launch of this congress in 2006, based on a concept by Frank Böttcher, delegate numbers have increased from 400 to over 3,000 (offline and online).

There are also many speakers at the congress, who are excellent climate communicators. The online content is excellently produced. This conference has benefitted from having a virtual presence so that it can reach wider audiences. Today, the ExtremWetterKongress is the leading interdisciplinary specialist conference for extreme weather in climate change in Germany and, as a dialogue event between science and the public, makes an important contribution to climate communication.

Other trustworthy elements of the conference are: scientific cooperation with German National Weather Service, and the event is taking place in cooperation with the German Climate Consortium, the German Meteorolgical Society and Skywarn.

The program is an excellent mixture combining relevant topics of weather and climate change. Speaking of a great variety – reports from relevant events in the near environment but also touching the global perspective. Other relevant themes and sessions are about sustainability of companies, economic development, transfer to a more sustainable society, special programmes to achieve important goals, relevance and development of social-media, judgement of fake-news, communication of climate-change, newest results of scientific research, just to name a few.