ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

AND GEOGRAPHY TALK

Glaciers and Ice Sheets: A personal view

of their role in the climate system and the impact that

climate change is having on them

G.W.K. Moore

Department of Physics

University of Toronto

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

11:30 a.m., Johnson 150

Bishop’s University

Abstract

The cryosphere is an important component of the climate system that is the result of their role as a long-term reservoir of water.  They also typically have an important impact on their local environment that stems from their height and their cold and bright surface. As a result, they also play an important role in many atmospheric and climate processes.  In this talk, I will discuss my research into glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet.  Using unique ice core data from Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, I will show that the increasing snow accumulation on its central plateau that began in the middle of the 19^th century is the result of a warming climate that is modifying the large-scale atmospheric circulation in the eastern Pacific and western North America so as to result in the enhanced transport of tropical moisture towards the mountain.  In contrast, ice core data from the Himalaya indicate that snow accumulation in this region has been decreasing since the middle of the 19^th century. I will argue that this response is the result of an increase in the strength of the subtropical jet stream that acts to remove snow from the high mountains of the Himalaya.  In East Africa, tropical glaciers have been retreating for the past 100 years and I will present unique meteorological data from the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda that suggests this retreat is the result of a warming climate.  Finally, I will present some results from a field project near Greenland that has shed light on the impact that the high topography of its ice sheet has on atmospheric circulation.

Evidence of recent environmental

change in lakes in the Hudson Bay

Lowlands, northern Ontario

Dr. Andrew Paterson

Research Scientist
Dorset Environmental Science Centre
Ontario Ministry of the Environment

Friday, March 30, 2012
3:30 p.m.
Room 426, Burnside Hall
McGill University

All are welcome to attend.

Impact of water withdrawals,

dams and climate change on ecologically-relevant

river flow characteristics: Results of a

global-scale modeling study

Dr. Petra Döll

Professor of Hydrology
Institute of Physical Geography – Hydrology Group
University of Frankfurt/Main
Germany

Friday, March 16, 2012
3:30 p.m.
Room 426, Burnside Hall
McGill University

All are welcome to attend.

The Little Ice Age & Beyond: Societal Impacts and

Modelling the Long-term Changes

Dr. Lawrence A. Mysak

Past-President of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans

Canada Steamship Lines Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, McGill University

Professor Mysak’s presentation will begin with a brief discussion of the impacts of the Little Ice Age (LIA) on military history, musical instruments, and church windows.  He will describe how reconstructed LIA wind-stress fields which take into account the North Atlantic Oscillation, together with three radiative forcings (volcanic activity, insolation changes and greenhouse gas changes), are used to drive the UVic Earth System Climate Model in order to simulate various environmental changes since 1500 A.D.  These changes involve the Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature (SAT), the sea-ice cover in both hemispheres, global ocean properties (heat content and hydrography), and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.  In his study, the LIA extended from 1500 to about 1850, when the industrial era began. The simulated NH SAT agrees quite well with several temperature reconstructions.  Interestingly enough, the simulated sea-cover in each hemisphere responds quite differently to the forcings.  Only in the NH is the simulated sea-ice area and volume noticeably larger during the LIA than during the present-day area and volume.  It is also shown, among other things, that changes in the upper ocean heat content are mainly driven by radiative forcing changes, except in the polar regions where the varying wind-stress drives multi-decadal advective events into the high latitudes.

Friday, March 2, 2012

3:30 p.m.

Room 426, Burnside Hall

McGill University

All are welcome to attend.

Understanding variability and temporal

trends in biosphere-atmosphere CO₂

exchange through integrating

models with data

Dr. Trevor Keenan

Postdoctoral fellow, Richardson Lab
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University

Friday, February 17, 2012
3:30 p.m.
Room 426, Burnside Hall
McGill University
805 Sherbrooke Street West

All are welcome to attend.

California delta wetlands: land-use change,

greenhouse gas emissions and subsidence

Dr. Oliver Sonnentag

Professeur adjoint
Département de géographie
Université de Montréal

Friday, February 3, 2012
3:30 pm
Room 426, Burnside Hall
McGill University

Coastal environments, sea level change,

and ancient hurricanes in Cuba

Dr. Matthew Peros

Assistant Professor, Bishop’s University
Canada Research Chair in Climate and Environmental Change

Friday, January 20, 2012
3:30 pm
Room 426, Burnside Hall
McGill University

All are welcome to attend.