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The Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) is one of the nation’s leading institutes in earth and environmental sciences research. Its diverse and world-renowned faculty members are engaged in interdisciplinary, innovative and collaborative research on some of the most compelling problems and issues of our time. EESI is part of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment.

Fall 2009 EarthTalks Seminar Series

Frontiers in Earth Systems Ecology Inaugural Seminar

Exploring Antarctica's Frozen Past

David Pollard, EESI senior scientist, uses ice-sheet models to understand variations of the past.

  
David Pollard works with global climate models (GCMs) and ice-sheet models (ICMs) to both investigate the physical processes that have shaped Earth’s climate over geologic time and project the future of the Earth’s system.
Modeled Antarctic ice sheet at particular times through the warm Marine Isotope Stage 31 event, around 1.07 million years ago.
Research
Ice-sheet elevations and floating ice-shelf thicknesses are shown by two different color scales. A similar drastic collapse of West Antarctic ice may happen in the next few thousand years due to greenhouse-gas warming.

By coupling and applying these models in innovative ways, Pollard has developed new modeling techniques that allow current knowledge about floating ice shelves to be integrated into existing ice-sheet models. With these, he has simulated the advance and retreat of the grounding line - where floating ice shelves and grounded ice meet - of the West Antarctic ice shelves.

Read More Here...

Watch video of diminishing ice shelves

 

Spring 2009 Marcellus Shale EarthTalks Seminar Series

Highlights and Announcements