Institutional Seminar Series
Tuesday, October 20
via Zoom (Link to be sent morning of)
1:00 p.m. Talks begin w/ Q&A
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Jamin Greenbaum - Antarctica: From natural wonder to global threat
Since being recognized as a continent in 1820, Antarctica has been perceived as a natural wonder, unforgiving frontier, commercial venture, and opportunity for territorial claims. Field researchers in the Geophysical Age of Antarctic exploration have since revealed an overlying ice sheet actively responding to climate change. Much of the alarm stems from what was discovered beneath thinning ice: Coordinated international efforts revealed subglacial basins the size of California lying well below sea level that we now know collapsed during past interglacial warm periods. Strengthened international collaboration will be important as our focus shifts from mapping to monitoring how and why the ice over these basins changes—a critical baseline for accurate predictions of sea level rise.
Morgan Levy - Data-driven approaches to understanding and addressing freshwater sustainability
Many threats to people, economies, and ecosystems are governed by connections between climate and hydrology. Solutions to challenges like freshwater availability, food insecurity, and the transmission of many diseases rely on understanding how society interacts with natural and engineered water systems. Rapidly expanding catalogs of physical and social data provide new opportunities to understand and address pressing environmental issues. In this talk, I’ll outline how data-driven research contributes to understanding relationships between the water cycle and threats to human and vegetation health, and highlight work with SIO colleagues on water use in California’s agricultural sector as an example of this type of research.