Kolloquien
Sommersemester 2022
URL zum ICS-Kalender dieses Seminars
Kirchhoff-Institut für Physik, Otto-Haxel-Hörsaal
freitags 17:15
Vorträge
10.6.2022 17:00
Dr. Johann P. Klages, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven INF 308, Hörsaal 1
Exotic worlds were hiding under the Antarctic ice for millions of years. A specialized
seafloor drill rig finally enabled to recover those enigmatic sediments, witnessing lush
and warm climate conditions near the South Pole – unexpected for those highest
latitudes with more than four months of polar night darkness. This knowledge changed
our view of the severity of global climate conditions during phases of peak global
warmth and reveal the significance modern ice-sheet presence has for buffering future
climate runaway. Because then, some 55 million years later, permanent ice cover
started to increasingly characterize the continent towards the icy world we know today.
However, this happened as asymmetric and erratic as the Antarctic ice sheet reacts
to external forcing today. But it is this knowledge, which is not only indispensable for
re-evaluating Earth’s past climatic extremes but also for calibrating and improving
numerical models that ultimately try to predict Earth’s future climate as reliably as
possible.