If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, the Earth’s sea level would rise six to seven inches – leaving places such as Naples, Fla. and Washington, D.C. completely underwater.
This, along with many other staggering realities concerning global climate change, was brought to the attention of a packed crowd last night during a speech given by Lonnie Thompson, a distinguished professor of geological sciences at The Ohio State University.
During Thompson’s lecture, “Rapid Climate Change in the Earth System: Past, Present and Future,” he stressed the importance of the tropics and tropical glaciers as records of climate and environmental change.
“Glaciers are our most visible evidence of global warming,” he said. “Glaciers are disappearing and with them, very valuable paleoclimate archives are being lost.”
A research scientist at OSU’s Byrd Polar Research Center, Thompson has moved the study of ice core paleoclimatology, or the study of ancient climates, from the polar ice fields to the highest tropical and subtropical ice fields.
“Lonnie is an international leader in ice core paleoclimatology,” said Jeff Snyder, a geology professor at the University. “His colleagues are envious of him on many levels, the exotic places he’s fortunate enough to study, his published works, and of course the scientific advancements.”
Thompson presented visual documentation of glacier depletion around the world. Perhaps most notably, he mentioned that the Glacier National park, located in Montana, is retreating so rapidly that it is likely in 30 years there will be no ice present at all.
Over 20 years of research has shown Thompson that the famous snows on Mount Kilimanjaro, which have existed for over 11,000 years, are now melting so quickly that they could disappear by the year 2015. He has also placed emphasis on the El Nino and monsoon systems that dominate the climate of the tropical Pacific and affect global-scale oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns.
In concluding, Thompson offered three options concerning the issue rapid climate change. Choose to ignore it all together, mitigate or invest in alternative energy sources or adapt to the inevitable changes that are to come.
Though many of the seats in room 308 of the Union were occupied by students, the speech was open to the public as well. A short reception followed.
“I felt Dr. Thompson’s speech was exhilarating,” said Bernardo Aguiar, a freshman, business major. “I enjoyed the different charts and comparisons of sea level from year to year, I really like when the different colleges bring in speakers like this, it’s beneficial.”
“I knew a little bit about the topic before I came to this discussion,” said freshman, Kyle Mondy. “Though parts of it were complicated, I found it to be interesting and his points were easily seen through the photos.”