Gordon Manley Memorial Lecture - Taking the Temperature: Climate Change and the Greenland Ice Sheet
LOCATION
Durham
Gorrig Road
Pentrellwyn
Llandysul
Sir Ceredigion
SA44 4LQ
United Kingdom
SPEAKER: Prof Antony Long, Durham University.
The Greenland Ice Sheet is the only remaining northern hemisphere ice sheet following the end of the last glaciation. Even today, it is a major player in influencing - and being influenced by - atmospheric and oceanic processes in the North Atlantic and surrounding regions. As the Arctic warms, so concern grows as to the contribution that the ice sheet may make to future global sea-level rise, with potentially serious impacts on natural and human systems world-wide. Deep ice cores, drilled through the high interior of the Greenland Ice Sheet, preserve highly resolved records of past climate change that extend back into the last interglacial (c. 120-130,000 years ago). A key research question is how did these climate changes drive periods of ice sheet mass gain or loss and ice sheet margin advance and retreat, and what were the consequences of these changes on global sea level? In this lecture I will outline the evidence for past climate change from Greenland over timescales that range from hundreds of thousands of years to decades, drawing on evidence mainly from the ice cores but also other climate archives including recent meteorological records. I will then explore the impact of these changes on past ice sheet behaviour, using field and laboratory data collected from a range of terrestrial and marine archives, including by members of Durham University’s Geography Department over the last 20 years. The lecture will conclude by reflecting on what these past records tell us about how the Greenland Ice Sheet may respond to future climate change in a warmer than present World.
SPEAKER: Prof Antony Long, Durham University.
The Greenland Ice Sheet is the only remaining northern hemisphere ice sheet following the end of the last glaciation. Even today, it is a major player in influencing - and being influenced by - atmospheric and oceanic processes in the North Atlantic and surrounding regions. As the Arctic warms, so concern grows as to the contribution that the ice sheet may make to future global sea-level rise, with potentially serious impacts on natural and human systems world-wide. Deep ice cores, drilled through the high interior of the Greenland Ice Sheet, preserve highly resolved records of past climate change that extend back into the last interglacial (c. 120-130,000 years ago). A key research question is how did these climate changes drive periods of ice sheet mass gain or loss and ice sheet margin advance and retreat, and what were the consequences of these changes on global sea level? In this lecture I will outline the evidence for past climate change from Greenland over timescales that range from hundreds of thousands of years to decades, drawing on evidence mainly from the ice cores but also other climate archives including recent meteorological records. I will then explore the impact of these changes on past ice sheet behaviour, using field and laboratory data collected from a range of terrestrial and marine archives, including by members of Durham University’s Geography Department over the last 20 years. The lecture will conclude by reflecting on what these past records tell us about how the Greenland Ice Sheet may respond to future climate change in a warmer than present World.