Polar Geophysicist to Discuss Climate Change, Arctic Sea Ice Nov. 12

Story posted November 05, 2009

ArcticSeaIce.jpg
Sea ice covers much of the Arctic Ocean.

Polar geophysicist Donald K. Perovich will deliver Bowdoin's Kibbe Science Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 12, 2009, in Room 151, Cleaveland Hall.

Perovich's talk, titled "Sunlight, Sea Ice, and Water: Climate Change and the Arctic Sea Ice Cover," is open to the public and admission is free. For more information call 725-3257.

Sea ice covers much of the Arctic Ocean. Climate models indicate that this extensive, but thin, floating ice cover is both a harbinger and an amplifier of global climate change.

Perovich will demonstrate how the Arctic sea ice cover is in decline as a consequence of overall warming trends, changes in cloud cover, shifts in atmospheric circulation patterns, increased export of ice out of the Arctic Basin, and enhanced solar heating of the ocean. He will also discuss how diminishing Arctic sea ice has implications not only for the Arctic, but also for the global climate system, creating social, political, economic, and ecological challenges.

Donald Perovich is senior research geophysicist at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., and an adjunct professor in the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.

The Kibbe Science Lecture Fund was established in 1994 by Frank W. Kibbe '37 and his wife, Lucy K. Kibbe, to support lectures by visiting scholars on topics deemed to be on the cutting edge of or associated with new developments or research findings in the fields of astronomy or geology.

« Back | « Go to Featured Events | Go to Events Calendar