Thomas A. Mutch Lecture:
"Changing Precipitation Patterns: Lessons from the Past"
Synopsis: The distribution of global rainfall has varied with summer insolation, with mean global temperature, and with difference in temperature between hemispheres. These changes are recorded by paleo-shorelines of closed basin lakes and by oxygen isotopes in cave stalagmites. Based on a preliminary study of records covering the last 25 kyrs, there is a suggestion that as greenhouse gases warm the earth, the temperate drylands will become more arid and the Amazonian rainbelt will undergo a northward shift.
Wallace Broecker, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 4pm
MacMillan 115
Reception to follow
Award winning climate science pioneer Wallace Broecker, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, first warned in the 70's that the Earth would warm because of a buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases released by burning fossil fuels. No longer just explaining climate change, Broecker is now committed to a finding solution.
Broecker’s studies regarding biogeochemical cycles of carbon and the influence of climate change on polar ice and ocean sediments have earned him decades of international attention. Among many other awards, he was granted the Vetlesen Prize in 1987, the National Medal of Science by Bill Clinton in 1996 and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2002. Most recently, he has been in the limelight for his cutting-edge work in carbon sequestration with his Earth Institute colleagues, including geophysicist Dr. Klaus Lackner, director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy. Read more »