Science and bild der wissenschaft to host public lecture in Hamburg, November 16
Washington, DC (October 29, 1999) - U.S. and German experts will address the global challenges of climate change and its implications for the future at a public lecture November 16 in Hamburg, Germany. Global climate shifts and increasing concerns about the impact of humans on the environment have prompted the questions: Is climate change inevitable? Will Europe experience a warming or cooling trend? What are the consequences of climate change, and how can humans cope? In their second collaborative event this year, bild der wissenschaft and Science will bring together three prominent researchers to address these and other issues.
Featured speakers:
Introductions by Brooks Hanson, deputy managing editor, Science
Moderators:
is an independent, weekly peer-reviewed journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Bild der wissenschaft is a leading monthly German science magazine.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For interviews with Brooks Hanson or George Denton , contact Ursula Oaks, 202-326-7088, or uoaks@aaas.org . For interviews with Hartmut Graßl , contact the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 49-40-41173-248; or with Stefan Rahmstorf , contact the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 49-331-288-25-07.
George Denton is the Libra Professor of Geological Sciences and Quaternary Studies at the University of Maine, where he served as Director of the Institute for Quaternary Studies from 1988-1993. Denton's primary research area is the geological history of large ice sheets and smaller mountain glaciers. He is particularly interested in how ocean-atmosphere circulation affects global climate, and the causes of the 100,000-year ice-age cycles.
Denton's research team, based at the University of Maine, spends an average of three months each year in various regions of the southern hemisphere. One of their recent projects dealt with the Quaternary and late Tertiary history of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Another project looked at the alpine glacier history of the Chilean Andes. In his current research in New Zealand, Denton is investigating the timing and mechanisms of abrupt climate change in the region, particularly how climate change originating in the northern hemisphere might impact the southern hemisphere.
In 1990, Denton was presented with the Vega Medal (gold) by H.M. Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in Stockholm and was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1995. He also received the Bruce-Preller Prize from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1996, and is currently a member of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Panel. George Denton completed his undergraduate studies at Tufts University and earned his MA and PhD degrees in Geology from Yale University. He lives in Orono, Maine.
Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf is a climate scientist and ocean expert from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Rahmstorf is well-known internationally for his papers about the role of ocean streams in climate. Through computer simulations, his studies have looked at Atlantic stream behaviors resulting from climate change, especially during the last ice age. Rahmstorf has shown that the ocean stream is unstable and can even "turn over" under certain circumstances, a finding that can explain sudden climate changes. In April, Rahmstorf received a prestigious James S. McDonnell Foundation Centennial Fellowship.
Dr. Hartmut Graßl is a former director of the Joint Planning Staff of the World Climate Research Program in Geneva. He was a member of the "Protection of the Earth's Atmosphere" Enquiry Commission of the German Parliament from 1989 to 1994 and part of an intergovernmental panel on climate change from 1988-1994. Dr. Graßl is currently director of the "Physics of the Atmosphere" division at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.