This past Monday, a panel of three experts from the UB Geology Department described the worldly sights they saw, the indigenous people they met and the frozen samples they and UB undergraduates collected during their field research at the Artic Circle.
The lecture titled "There and Back Again: Journeys to the Arctic" also focused on the rapid retreat of polar ice and the role this phenomenon plays in global warming.
According to Elizabeth Thomas, a graduate student of geology, undergraduate research took her to the Arctic Circle.
"When I was there, I saw strange flowers everywhere, migratory birds, beautiful mountains," she said. "I experienced the 24-hour sunlight. But I got so exhausted from hiking in the snow that I would fall asleep anyways. We also did outreach to the native population to tell them how climate change affects them."
Thomas believes she made a significant contribution to scientific knowledge on the polar climate in the last two millennia through her experiences with the department.
"For my part of the research, we used ice augurs to drill cores in the ocean sediment. Then, we sent the samples to labs at UB to analyze for fossil insects. When the cold-loving species disappeared, that meant that the environment got warmer," she said.
UB professor of geology Jason Briner said that undergraduates from all backgrounds could participate in this type of research. Also, those who seek hands-on work in the field can find positions in many of the scientific bases that ring the Arctic Circle.
"People who study this come from a broad academic spectrum. I attended a conference on climate change where geologists were in the minority. I met chemists, biologists, ecologists and human dimensions scientists," he said. "We study lake sediments, greenhouse gas concentrations and insect assemblages. We have stations in Greenland, Alaska, Iceland and Baffin Island in Canada. If you want to get involved, just talk to the professors."
According to Briner, scientific inquiry into polar climate has become more important than ever before because trends in the Arctic climate of today might foreshadow the climatic future for the rest of the planet.
"Changes in the Arctic are more dramatic. The globe has warmed by one degree Fahrenheit while the Arctic has warmed by two to three degrees," he said. "The reason for this discrepancy is polar amplification. It is a positive feedback loop that amplifies the climactic changes in the poles."
Briner explained that as temperature rises in the Arctic due to global warming, surface ice and permafrost begin to melt. The melting exposes darker surfaces that reflect less solar radiation than the original ice that covered them. This shift in albedo, or reflectivity, makes the atmosphere trap more heat, which boosts the average temperature.
Thomas, Briner, and Paul Reitan, emeritus professor of geology at UB, cited a slew of evidence that the recent climate shifts in the Arctic are abnormal.
"We looked for insect fossils in the ocean sediment cores that we drilled. There are two species that live at a cold temperature," Thomas said. "For the last 2,000 years, at least one of the two species existed at all times. In the last 50 years, they declined in abundance. In the past 20 years, they've disappeared. That's unprecedented."
Briner speculated that if the melting of polar ice continues, many densely populated coastal areas would become submerged under a rising ocean.
"If the Greenland ice sheet and the polar sheets melted, the sea could rise by several hundred feet. Countries like Bangladesh that do not have the resources to build levies will be drowned," he said.
Reitan attributed American government's unwillingness to halt global warming to politics and economics.
"We have to accept the best science," he said. "We cannot expect our politicians to lead us. We ourselves need to find ways technological, political and moral to slow down the change."
Emily Bauer, a sophomore biology major, found the lecture both informative and chilling.
"I would really advise students to go to these events to learn about what's in their future," she said. "At the same time, the idea that it might be too late to reverse the trend is scary."
For Danielle Peters, a sophomore undecided major, the lecture struck a personal note.
"I'm from Long Island. If the sea level rose, my entire community including my house would be under water."
The next installment of the five-part Climate Talks series sponsored by UB Green is "Bringing It Back Home: Global Climate, Local Change," which will be held on October 23 at 7 p.m. at Allen Hall on South Campus. According to James Simon, associate environmental educator for UB Green, this presentation will cover local environmental initiatives like the farmer's market in Founder's Plaza.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
