All of the sessions in this conference are underpinned by modelling and observational efforts. We rely on these efforts to give both accurate information about the aquatic environment and reliable, predictive capabilities on future environmental change. A major issue arises when we consider that the observations we make have uncertainty associated with them (e.g. in time and space, methodological) and that such observations feed into model development. Models thus carry inherent uncertainties associated with parameters, model structure and complexity and forcing. How these uncertainties propagate through and affect model outputs requires acknowledgement and analysis before we can place our “trust” in model predictions. This session invites contributions that address how to deal with and overcome model and observational uncertainty. We welcome both observationalists and modellers to this discussion.

Keynote : Dr Vicky Pope (Head of Climate Change Advice, UK Met Office, Hadley Centre)