Re: the talk. Sorry, so far as I'm aware nobody was recording it. I am likely to be repeating it at the Into the Blue event in Manchester next month, in some form, but haven't had that confirmed yet...
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/latest/events/blue/
Re: funding. Well of course. Scientists, like anybody else, need work coming in to pay the bills. The mechanism for most of them is that they propose research projects and go to funding bodies to make that case - if they are successful, it's because they have passed a review of whether their proposed research is both important, and significant new science. Only fairly minor research projects usually get done without that sort of process in the background, and universities are to a significant extent funded that way.
At the moment what we're doing is early stages and indeed we're exploring the basic issues preparatory to making those grant applications. CAT is actually a relatively small part of the broader topic of the impact climate change *may* be having on aviation. Other, more core, topics, include shifting large bird populations (think birdstrike risk) following their food sources as surface wetness patterns shift, airport ability to manage more regular and severe rainfall events, air traffic management of increased frequency and severity severe weather events (think a big CB over the top of LHR for an hour - where's the capacity to take and park all the big jets in that time?, also ask yourself what happens to all the water?, can you maintain safe IFR separation as everybody else routes around it), all those short single runway airports next to sea and sea level (most of Greece?) as peak surface temperatures increase: prevailing wind vectors shift away from net runway alignment and sea levels rise. The science seems to also say that the speed of sound in the stratosphere has dropped by about 1% in the last 25 years, and we're looking at what that may be doing to long haul cruise groundspeeds (ditto shifting upper winds). For that matter, whilst small beer in the UK, going overseas higher peak surface temperatures raises questions about safety of fuel storage, and the working conditions of ground staff. The long term climate models do suggest changing fog patterns - if the computer models are right (clearly a big question in itself, I am always sceptical of the outputs of the modellers) Edinburgh will see virtually no fog in 25 years, but other places may see more.
It's keeping us all fairly busy - CAT is actually quite low down the priority list of things we're thinking about at the moment, but it does grab headlines and may prove important as we mine the data.
G