GeoQuEST Seminar

Zoom link: https://bit.ly/2IPPewk

Password: GeoQuEST

Abstract: The Antarctic ice sheets contain 30 million cubic kilometres (mck) of ice. Together with the Greenland Ice Sheet (2.9 mck), both ice sheets contain 99% of the freshwater ice on Earth. During the last ice age, the land-based ice was much larger and global mean sea level was about 135 m lower than today. Since then, for the last 19,000 years, the ice sheets melted and sea level rose with a lot of regional differentiation to present levels. We don't know precisely how much more and how fast sea level could rise during a warmer climate than today.

I am a marine geologist and would like to know how climate variations, ocean-ice and bedrock interact, and therefore studied the history and variabilty of the Antarctic ice sheets during the past. Sampling and drilling the sedimentary deposits around Antarctica, analysis, data interpretation and comparisons to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment were part of my studies. This knowledge and data form a solid base for the calibration of ice sheet models, making them more valuable for future Earth climate models and sea level rise predictions.

-Dr Gerhard Kuhn, Alfred Wegner Institute

You will receive an email with the Zoom invination two days before the event.