2023 John H. Carlson Lecture: A Tale of Ice, Warm Water, and the Future | Featuring Fiametta Straneo (Scripps, UCSD)

The Lorenz Center, of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, is pleased to present the 2023 John H. Carlson Lecture as part of the New England Aquarium Lecture Series.

THIS YEAR’S TALK
It is the early 2000s, glaciers in Greenland start speeding up, melting, and raising sea level. Attention turns to the ocean: could it be that the glaciers are responding to ocean warming? To answer this we need to explore where glaciers flow into the ocean – an iceberg-infested, remote and dangerous place. This the story of how we did it – using robots, icebreakers, helicopters, and seals – and of the detective-like work, clue after clue, that told us how a warming ocean impacts an ice sheet. It is also the story of the people – oceanographers, glaciologists, climate scientists, engineers, technicians, vessel operators, and local experts – who worked together to make discovery possible.

Free and open to the public. Students and families welcome.
Doors open at 5:30 with exhibits from MIT students and climate scientists in the Simons Theatre lobby.

REGISTER TO JOIN US, VIA LIVE STREAM OR IN-PERSON
https://bit.ly/carlson2023

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Fiamma Straneo is a co-Director of the Polar Center and a Professor of Oceans and Climate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California San Diego. Prior to joining UCSD, she was a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her research focuses on the high latitude North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, their interaction with the atmosphere, sea-ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet. Much of her work involves obtaining and interpreting data from challenging polar environments using platforms that include icebreakers, fishing vessels, helicopters, snowmobiles and autonomous surface and underwater vehicles.

Straneo has led over 20 field expeditions to the Arctic and Greenland and collaborates extensively with climate and paleoclimate scientists, glaciologists and ice sheet modelers. She recently chaired the Ocean Forcing Working Group for the Ice Sheet Modeling Intercomparison Project for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and is contributing author for the same report. Straneo co-chaired the Climate and Cryosphere Program of the World Climate Research Program from 2018-2022 and is a co-chair and founder of the Greenland Ice Sheet/Ocean Science Network (GRISO). Straneo’s awards and fellowships include the Leopold Leadership Program from Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, the Sverdrup Award by the American Geophysical Union, the Keeling Lecture (UCSD), the Walker-Ames Fellowship (UW) and a Honorary PhD from the University of Bergen, NO. Straneo obtained a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography in 1999 from the University of Washington, USA, following a Laurea cum Laude in Physics in 1993 from the University of Milan, Italy.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
The John H. Carlson Lecture communicates exciting new results in climate science. Free of charge and open to the general public, this annual lecture series is made possible by a generous gift from MIT alumnus John H. Carlson to the Lorenz Center in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT.

Questions? Please contact Megan Cokely | mecokely@mit.edu