UMaine Climate Change Lecture to Focus on Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise

Contact: Gregory Zaro, 581-1857

ORONO — Gordon Hamilton, research associate professor in the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, will present “On Thin Ice: Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise” from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. Thursday, April 23, at the Bangor Public Library. Hamilton’s talk is the final installment of the season in the Climate Change Institute’s monthly lecture series, which is free and open to the public. The series will resume in the fall.

Hamilton will discuss what would happen if the great polar ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which contain most of the world’s supply of freshwater, were to melt. Though such a scenario is unlikely to happen over the next few decades or centuries, recent observations have shown parts of Greenland and Antarctica to be changing much more rapidly than conventional theories and models would predict. These changes indicate that a global sea level rise of 1 meter (3 feet) is a realistic possibility by the end of this century.

Hamilton will review recent observations of change, including groundbreaking work conducted by UMaine scientists, and discuss some of the catastrophic societal impacts of a modest-sounding 1-meter rise in sea level.

Hamilton is a glaciologist who focuses on the dynamic behavior of polar glaciers and ice sheets, and their interaction with the climate system. His research group at the University of Maine has pioneered the measurement of fast-moving glaciers from space and ground-based experiments. He has led more than 20 expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica, and is a member of several NASA mission science teams. Prior to joining the UMaine faculty in 2000, Hamilton was a research scientist at The Ohio State University and the Norwegian Polar Institute.

The lecture series is intended to make the science of climate change accessible to a broad audience. All lectures are free and open to the public.