Greetings from Uppsala: CLIMES Impacts Conference - Day 1 Through a Computer Scientist’s Lens

I am sitting by the Fyrisån (Fyris River), reflecting on my second day in Sweden. As I watch the water flow slowly, I imagine Viking boats once moving along this river toward Lake Mälaren.

Here is a short summary of my first two days in Sweden: I am already in love with this country. If you know my fascination with Viking lore and my nature-lover instincts, this may not be surprising, but the feeling arrived much faster than I expected.

Today I walked to the main building of Uppsala University, and for a moment I felt something very clearly: I belong to the scientific community.

I am here in Uppsala to attend the CLIMES Impacts 2026 conference, where we are presenting our poster titled “AI-Driven Monitoring and Forecasting of Marine Mucilage: A Climate Impact Case from the Marmara Sea.”

It is a real pleasure to share this work with the community. Standing beside my poster, I keep thinking the same thing: God, I love being part of the Climate Change AI community.

Marine mucilage is still a relatively unfamiliar phenomenon in Sweden, so the conversations have been especially interesting.

If you are curious to learn more about this climate-related marine phenomenon and our research, I will be by my poster for the next two days, please come by and say hello!

In another blog post, we will discuss marine mucilage, my first real encounter with graph neural networks, and the challenges of data and label scarcity.

For today, however, let’s focus on the first day of CLIMES Impacts 2026 Conference.

What were my main takeaways from today? What discussions are currently shaping the impact side of climate change research?

On the first day of the conference, there was one keynote talk, one parallel session, and one poster session. The parallel session covered topics including health, energy systems, and social impacts.

The energy systems section particularly caught my attention because one of the presentations focused on convection-permitting models, which is directly related to my master’s thesis.

It was also a very nice coincidence that the keynote speech focused on adaptation to flood risk, a topic closely connected to my research interests.

The keynote speech was given by Heidi Kreibich from the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences.

I particularly appreciated the approach of framing flood risk as a human–water system, as well as the important question of “when the limits of adaptation are reached.”

While working on the forecasting side of floods, I had never really thought deeply about the limits of adaptation. Hearing this perspective was therefore very thought-provoking.

I was also impressed by the strong encouragement of multidisciplinary approaches. As a computer scientist working in climate-related topics, this is something I care deeply about.

Today I attended the energy systems session of the parallel tracks. One particularly valuable insight for me was realizing how extreme events can also affect renewable energy potential and infrastructure.

I must admit that I had secretly believed renewable energy systems were almost magical; as if nothing could ever harm them. This session reminded me that even renewable systems remain vulnerable to climate variability and extreme events.

Another interesting realization was that convection-permitting models are not only useful for predicting precipitation. They can also be very valuable for studying solar radiation and wind characteristics, especially in regions with complex orography.

I also learned about the importance of energy access planning, as well as concepts such as renewable electricity droughts and possible mitigation mechanisms.

Finally, during a discussion about a project developing an LLM-derived hazard database for Sweden, I found myself wanting to encourage the team to consider training their own language model rather than relying solely on models such as GPT-4o.

I spent most of the time beside my poster, but I also had the chance to briefly look at some of the other posters. I was impressed by the powerful ideas behind many of these projects.

I hope to examine them more carefully during tomorrow’s poster session and have conversations with the project authors.

I would also like to thank everyone who visited my poster. I truly enjoyed talking with them and learning from their perspectives.

As the first day of the conference comes to an end, I find myself once again walking along the Fyrisån. The river flows quietly through Uppsala, carrying centuries of history from Viking journeys toward Lake Mälaren to today’s conversations about climate resilience.

It feels meaningful to stand in a place shaped by so many generations while discussing the future of our planet. Day one of the CLIMES Impacts 2026 Conference reminded me how powerful interdisciplinary collaboration can be when we try to understand and respond to climate change.

Tomorrow brings another day of discussions, ideas, and conversations and I am excited to see what new perspectives will emerge.

If you are attending the conference in Uppsala, feel free to stop by my poster! I would love to talk more about marine mucilage, climate impacts, and interdisciplinary research.

And if you’re reading this from afar, join me in the comments; let’s keep this river of ideas flowing.

From my world to yours, Ece 🌍✨