'Climate change from a geological perspective'

Tuesday 6 March 2007
‘Climate change from a geological perspective'
Aberystwyth glaciologist to give public lecture as part of The Geological Society of London's bicentennial celebrations
Professor Mike Hambrey from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, is one of a distinguished list of speakers who have been invited to give public lectures as part of the Geological Society of London’s Bicentenary celebrations.

The title of the lecture, which will be delivered to the Geological Society at its Burlington House headquarters in London on 20th March, is ‘Climate change from a geological perspective’. It will be the third in the Shell London Lecture Series.

In his introduction to the lecture Professor Hambrey wrote:
“In these days of concern over human-induced global warming, it is helpful to take stock of how the Earth’s climate has evolved since rocks began yielding a climatic signal, nearly 3000 million years ago. In this talk, we first explore the natural causes of climate change, and examine the sketchy record of climate evolution since that time. We focus on past glaciations, which have one of the greatest impacts on the global environment. For example, fluctuating ice sheets in the past drove sea-level changes, and were even responsible for the cyclicity of sedimentary sequences in former equatorial regions (such as Britain) that triggered the Industrial Revolution.”

“Zooming in on the most recent geological Era, the Cenozoic, the record of global cooling over the past 65 million years is of particular relevance to human civilisation, especially with reference to the growth and decay of ice sheets, and the corresponding fluctuations of sea level. In particular, the Cenozoic sedimentary record derived from high-latitude continental shelves informs us how the Antarctic ice sheet has evolved from initial growth under a temperate climate around 35 million years ago, to the cold polar conditions we see today.”

Professor Hambrey joined the University of Wales, Aberystwyth is 1997 and became Director of the Centre for Glaciology in 1998. He was awarded the Polar Medal by HM The Queen in 1989 and in December 2006 had a range of cliffs named after him in recognition of his many years of geological and glaciological research in the Antarctic and Arctic. Hambrey Cliffs are located on James Ross Island in the Antarctic.

During his 30 year research career Professor Hambrey has focused mainly on the structure and dynamics of glaciers, Earth’s Pre-Pleistocene glacial record, modern glacial sedimentary processes and the glacial history of Antarctica and Wales. His book Glaciers earned the Earth Science Publishers (USA) Outstanding Publication Award in 1995. He has served as Scientific Editor for the Journal of Glaciology (1995-2001) and the Journal of the Geological Society (1997-2000), and was a member of the Editorial Board of Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology and Palaeoecology (1987-97).

He is recently completed the editing of a Special Publication of the International Association of Sedimentologists on Glacial Sedimentary Processes and Products. He belongs to a number of international committees, and chairs a working group of the IUGG Commission on the Cryospheric Sciences. He is keen to promote the public understanding of science, and with a Swiss colleague has developed a popular website www.glaciers-online.net .

The Geological Society of London is the world's oldest national scientific and professional society for Earth scientists and was founded on 13 November 1807. The minutes of the meeting noted:
'That there be forthwith instituted a Geological Society for the purpose of making geologists acquainted with each other, of stimulating their zeal, of inducing them to adopt one nomenclature, of facilitating the communications of new facts and of ascertaining what is known in their science and what remains to be discovered.'