This past Saturday, the Cutting Edge Lecture Series brought a topic of worldwide concern to the Center for the Arts where renowned paleoclimatologist and assistant UB professor Jason Briner his Arctic research on global warming to an audience of about 125 people.
The event was the second in the series and part of UB's "A Greener Shade of Blue" campaign.
The large audience was mostly made up of local high school students.
"The turnout was the largest so far in the series' history," said event organizer Michele Bewley. "Others have come close, but this one had a slightly higher turnout."
The Cutting Edge Lecture Series showcases UB's status as a leading research-intensive university. The seminars combine current issues with the expertise of professors and alumni for a unique learning experience.
"As a research university, it's important to engage students in discovering new knowledge," said Charles Stinger, senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
In the lecture, Briner explained the past, present and future of Arctic warming. According to Briner, the earth is warming most in the Arctic, and the climate is changing rapidly.
"Studying the Arctic may give insight into future changes on the rest of the earth," he said.
Global change is not homogenous over the whole earth, according to Briner. Some areas are warming faster than others, while others are cooling. Temperatures change depending on the influence of three variables: the sun, volcano activity, and greenhouse gases, he said.
In the Arctic, the amount of sun energy reflected back into space depends on sea ice, which covers the Arctic Ocean year-round and reflects 40 to 50 percent of energy, Briner said. Since sea ice is part of Earth's shield, as it melts, more warming will occur.
According to Briner, the amount of weather catastrophes and the increase in population have a direct relationship to global warming.
Records show that 72 extreme weather events occurred between 1990 and 1998 whereas only 13 occurred between 1950 and 1960.
"Climate change is costly," he said. "It gets more expensive to recover because there are more catastrophes and more people are affected."
Briner also explained how paleoclimatologists gather information about past climates.
Tree rings, lake sediments and ice cores all potentially store information about the planet's past climate.
"Ice cores are wonderful archives of the composition of our atmosphere," Briner said. "This source allows scientists to go the farthest back in time."
According to Briner, when snow fell to the earth as far back as 400,000 years ago, tiny bubbles were trapped. Now, the bubbles are fossilized and the fossil pockets preserve atmosphere from whenever the air was trapped. By extracting the contents of the bubbles, scientists learn about past atmospheres.
Each May, Briner and a team of UB undergraduate and graduate students travel to Baffin Island, in Arctic Canada, to study the disappearance of ice caps and find clues about what our planet looked like during the earth's last warm period. The group takes samples from the Arctic and brings them back to UB's labs to be analyzed.
Briner's incorporation of students' experiences added interest for audience members.
"I liked the combination of humor and real life experiences," said Kristen Kern, a senior at Williamsville South High School. "He made the lecture really interesting by talking about what his students are doing."
Kern also felt inspired by Briner's presentation.
"The more he talked, the more I realized that we all have our own part in what happens," she said.
Briner said that the future is hard to predict because climate behaves sporadically. However, he doesn't think this takes matters out of people's hands.
"We have an impact on our world, and it's important for us to realize what it is," he said. "If we're partly responsible for what happens to the planet, that means we have some control, and I think that's a good thing."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
