Lecturer
Each Spring, we are privileged to invite one of the Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturers to campus for a presentation on their scientific specialty. These seminars are designed for the general public and topics cover a wide range of fields.
2010 Distinguished Lecturer
Dr. Kimberly Gray
Northwestern University
March 18, 2010
2009 Distinguished Lecturer
Dr. Alan Robock
Rutgers University
April 14, 2009 -
Downloadable presentation link
Related video 1 link
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Global Warming Is Real, and What You Can Do about It (P,G,S)
2005 was the warmest year on the planet in more than 1000 years. The Earth has warmed by almost 1°C during the past 150 years, and by 0.6°C (1°F) in just the past 30 years. Was this just by chance or caused by human pollution of the atmosphere, especially by carbon dioxide? Dr. Robock will explain why the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said, "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." He will explain the science behind global warming and describe how global warming will affect us, including sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, and threats to water resources and our food supply. Finally, he will discuss policy options for addressing the problem.
How the climate will change and the impacts of global warming can be addressed by science. What society chooses to do about this is a political decision, influenced by different values and interests. However, clear understanding of the science is a necessary input to these decisions, and in this talk Dr. Robock will clearly separate the science aspects from the policy aspects.
Dr. Robock graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1970 with a B.A. in Meteorology. For the next 2 years he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, developing curricula and training teachers of meteorology in the fishery vocational schools. He then attended graduate school in the Department of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving an S.M. in 1974 and Ph.D. in 1977. From then until the end of 1997, Dr. Robock was on the faculty of the Department of Meteorology of the University of Maryland, where he was a Professor and the State Climatologist of Maryland (1991-1997). Dr. Robock moved to Rutgers University in January, 1998, where he is a Professor II in the Department of Environmental Sciences. He is the Associate Director of the Center for Environmental Prediction. He is the Director of the Meteorology Undergraduate Program and a member of the Graduate Program in Atmospheric Science at Rutgers. He was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1998. He was listed in Who's Who in America in 1999. He was a participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008.
Dr. Robock's research involves many aspects of climate change. He conducts both observational analyses and climate model simulations. His current research focuses on geoengineering, regional atmosphere-hydrology modeling, climatic effects of nuclear weapons, soil moisture variations, the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate, detection and attribution of human effects on the climate system, and the impacts of climate change on human activities. He has published more than 250 articles on his research, including more than 150 peer-reviewed papers.
For more information, visit Dr. Robock's web site at http://www.envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock/
