Invited by Prof. YAO Tandong, Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Director of the Byrd Polar Research Center, Distinguished Professor of the Ohio State University, USA, and member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, is visiting ITP on January 19, 2013. She will guest the 5th Tibetan Plateau Science Forum by sharing her research experience and achievement in ice core paleoclimatology learnt from glaciers in the Antarctica and Greenland.
Report title:Understanding Global Climate Change: Evidence from Earth’s Ice Cover
Presenter: Prof. Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Director of the Byrd Polar Research Center, U.S.A.
Host：Prof. YAO Tandong
Venue: Meeting Room 912, ITPCAS,
#3 Building, Lin Cui Lu 16 Hao Yuan, Beijing
Time: 4.00-5.00 pm, Saturday, January 19, 2013
Abstract:
Ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica as well as from glaciers and ice caps at high elevations in lower latitudes provide unique insights on Earth’s climate history and the long term context critical for assessing contemporary climate variability. Earth’s globally averaged temperature has increased ~0.8°C over the last 110 years with much of the warming occurring in the last 60 years. Many Earth System components are responding rapidly and one dramatic example is Earth’s ice cover. The cryosphere consists almost exclusively of the two polar ice sheets (Antarctica and Greenland), widely dispersed alpine glaciers and ice caps, sea ice and permafrost. Melting is evident in all four subsystems but is occurring on varying spatial and temporal scales and with different anticipated impacts. Glaciers are among the best recorders of, and first responders to, natural and anthropogenic climate change and they provide a time perspective for current climatic and environmental variations. Most of Earth’s mid- and low-latitude ice fields are rapidly shrinking, consistent with model-derived predictions of the vertical amplification of tropical temperatures. Such glacier losses could have serious implications for people living in the affected areas. Climate models suggest that as Earth’s globally averaged temperature rises, the increase will be greatest in the high latitudes. This polar amplification is well documented. Satellite observations indicate that Antarctica and Greenland now experience an overall mass loss that contributes to sea level rise. The thickness and extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic is declining and increasing the likelihood of ice-free summer conditions well before the end of this century. This will change the political, economic, societal and ecological landscape of the region. This presentation provides an overview of the varied responses of the cryosphere in recent decades and where possible these changes will be situated within a longer temporal context.
Your participation and involvement in the discussion is expected and warmly welcome!
