Geography
Geographer addresses audience on climate change
Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:25:00 GMT
Dr Nick Pepin gave an invited oral presentation to a large audience (~400) at the American Geophysical Union Conference (AGU) in San Francisco in December 2009. The session was entitled “Are Mountains Like Poles” and was set in the context of climate change. It is widely accepted that global warming is amplified in the high latitudes as a result of snow and ice feedback. However, the sensitivity of mountain areas in comparison with other parts of the globe is less certain, although as recent revelations concerning glacial melting in the Himalayas reveal, this is a very important area of climate science. The session was organised by CIRMOUNT which is the Consortium for Integrated Research in Western Mountains. Although this started as a predominately a U.S. based group, it is increasingly drawing in international researchers and a global perspective. Other speakers and attendees included polar scientists as well as mountain researchers and general climate scientists.
Also at the conference, which was attended by over 16,000 earth scientists, he also presented a poster outlining his work on cold air drainage and climate warming in the western U.S. which summarised the research he did during the summer at the University of Oregon in collaboration with the North-West Alliance of Computer Science and Engineering (NACSE) and funded by Royal Society.
http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/geography/staff/title,2182,en.html