ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE SYMPOSIUM
Friday, April 15, 2005
7:00 P.M., Welch Hall Room 2.224

Lonnie Thompson - Ohio State University
"Ice Adventures: Tracking Evidence of Abrupt Climate Change Across the Tropics"

While Antarctica and Greenland may first come to mind when thinking of frozen fields of ice, glaciers occur widely across the planet, even on the equator! These glaciers at tropical latitudes preserve histories unattainable elsewhere. Unfortunately, these glaciers are rapidly melting because of unprecedented global warming. The rates of change will be examined on time scales ranging from only a couple of years, to tens of thousands to years. It is important to place these changes in the proper context because 70% of the global population lives in the tropical regions where these changes in glaciers are occurring.

Lonnie G. Thompson is a Distinguished University Professor in Geological Sciences and Research Scientist in the Byrd Polar Research Center, both at The Ohio State University. He has won many awards, including the 2005 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. He was the first to show that it was possible to get deep cores from high mountain peaks, and he showed that the famous snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa, which have been there for more than 11,000 years, may be gone in 2015.