Mount Kilimanjaro, 2000 Photo Credit: Dr. Lonnie G. ThompsonNote: Please also see below for other related talks on the theme of
global climate change and behavioral influences.
global climate change and behavioral influences.
The Presidential Scholar's Address at the ABA International Annual Conference is one of the highlights of the conference, featuring an eminent scholar of national stature.
This year's presentation is by an outstanding researcher -- Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson, Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and Senior Research Scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University.
Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, National Public Radio, Feb. 10, 2006To cite from the program bio,
Interview with Lonnie G. Thompson, Host: Ira Flatow
"...Dr. Thompson, one of the world's most renowned paleoclimatologists, has been described as an “ice hunter, “ and a “translator “ who deciphers messages trapped in ice cores that tell the history of the world's climate. He has led more than 50 expeditions during the last 30 years, to remote ice caps in Peru, Bolivia, China, Antarctica, Russia, Kenya, and other regions. Thompson's findings have resulted in major revisions in the field of paleoclimatology by demonstrating how tropical regions have undergone significant climate variability, countering the earlier view that higher latitudes dominate climate change. Thompson's research has been featured in hundreds of publications, including National Geographic and the National Geographic Adventure magazines " Dr. Thompson has also done outreach to young people through avenues like National Geographic Adventure, and Science Friday Kids' Connectiontm
He is also highlighted in, and consultant to, An Inconvenient Truth, Former Vice-President Al Gore's documentary film on global warming. As one of Time magazine's 2008 Heroes of the Environment, Thompson was identified in the magazine's October 6 issue as one of six scientists and innovators whose work is key to addressing global climate change. Thompson's many honors and awards include the Tyler World Prize for Environmental Achievement (2005), the environmental sciences equivalent of a Nobel Prize, and the U.S. National Medal of Science (2007), the highest honor the United States bestows on an American scientist... "Since global warming is a reality, why aren't people doing more about it?Whether or not people do something about global warming is more of a human nature issue than a political issue. If you look at human behavior, we tend to deal better with crises than to proactively change before the situation escalates to an emergency. But if there's no choice, humans are capable of huge changes.
Here in Ohio we have the Cuyahoga River that everyone knew was polluted, but it wasn't until it caught on fire that people realized, "Hey, this is a crisis, and we probably ought to do something about it." Now the river's been cleaned-up so that even walleye, pike, and game fish can live in it. It wasn't that we couldn't take care of the problem sooner, it was that we didn't have to do it sooner.
Lonnie G. Thompson, in "The Ice Man",
Hopefully everyone at the conference will take advantage of this special opportunity to hear Dr. Thompson first-hand, see how his research data shows the Earth's climate history and implications for climactic change, and that this will, in turn, inspire behavior analysts and the field of behavior analysis to participate in the study and shaping of the human behavior changes that are needed to protect the global environment.
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5/23/2009
5:00 p.m. - 5:50 p.m.
West 301 CD
Presidential Scholar's Address
Chair: William L. Heward (Ohio State University)
Understanding Global Climate Change and the Human Response: A Paleoclimate Perspective from the World's Highest Mountains
Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson , Distinguished University Professor, Geological Sciences; Byrd Polar Research Center, Research Scientist, The Ohio State University.
Abstract:
Glaciers are among the first responders to global warming, serving both as indicators and drivers of climate change. Over the last 35 years ice core records have been recovered systematically from both polar regions as well as twelve high-elevation ice fields, eleven of which are located in middle and tropical latitudes. Analyses of these ice cores and of the glaciers from which they have been drilled have yielded three lines of evidence for abrupt climate change both past and present.-------------------
They are:
(1) the temperature and precipitation histories recorded in the glaciers as revealed by the climate records extracted from the ice cores;
(2) the accelerating loss of the glaciers themselves, specifically Quelccaya ice cap, Peru, Kilimanjaro, Africa and Naimona’nyi, Himalayas will be updated with 2009 results and;
(3) the uncovering of ancient plants and animals from the margins of the glaciers as a result of their recent melting, thus illustrating the significance of the current ice loss.
The current melting of high-altitude, low-latitude ice fields is consistent with model predictions for a vertical amplification of temperature in the tropics. The ongoing global-scale, rapid retreat of mountain glaciers and more recently the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is not only contributing to global sea level rise, but is also threatening fresh water supplies in many of the world’s most populous regions.
The current and present danger posed by ongoing climate change is clear. Climatologically we are in unfamiliar territory and the world’s ice cover is responding dramatically however the human response to this issue is not so clear. Even though the evidence both from data and models becomes more compelling each year, and numerous documentations of global climate change such as in four IPCC documents, the rate of global carbon dioxide emissions for example, continues to accelerate.
As a society we have three options
(1) prevention,
(2) adaptation, and
(3) suffering.
The lecture will explore the human response to environmental changes in the past and what makes the current issues surrounding global climate change different.
Other related presentations:
#223 B. F. Skinner Lecture Series
5/24/2009
1:30 p.m. - 2:20 p.m.
West 301 CD
CSE
Global-Warming Effects and Human Solutions
Chair: Paul Chance
FREDERIC H. WAGNER (Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University)
#257 Special Event
5/24/2009
2:30 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.
West 301 CD
OTH/CSE; Theory
Responding to Global Warming...or Not: The Green Behavior Deficit
Chair: Anthony Biglan (Oregon Research Institute)
ANTHONY BIGLAN (Oregon Research Institute)
RICHARD F. RAKOS (Cleveland State University)
MARK P. ALAVOSIUS (University of Nevada, Reno)
ROBIN RUMPH (Stephen F. Austin University)
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References and for further reading:
Global Warning
Global warming is big news these days--and Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State geologist who's one of the world's leading experts on climate change--is having one sizzling summer.
Feature: The Ohio State University
Online Lecture
Ice Adventures: Tracking Evidence of Abrupt Climate Change Across the Tropics
Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson
UT Campus - Welch Hall 2.224, 7 PM
Complexities of climate change
There's more to the issue than a warming world and rising sea level
The Antarctic Sun
The Ice Hunter
DR. LONNIE THOMPSON
Rolling Stone
Posted Nov 03, 2005
Lonnie Thompson
Heroes of the Environment 2008,
Time Magazine
October 6, 2008.
Sunday, Mar. 26, 2006
Global Warming Heats Up
By Jeffrey Kluger
Time Magazine
Interactive Map: Global Warming Effects
US Climate change Science Program
US Global Change Research Program
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12 days and counting...
DISCLAIMER: Personal opinion and blog, not an official outlet intended to represent ABA-International® or other official entity or organization.
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