January 25th
Dr. Joseph Hartman, Energy and Environmental Research Center, University of North Dakota, and Dr. John Hoganson , North Dakota Geological Survey, are paleontologists who will discuss the response of organisms to climate change and asteroid impactimpact at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary. Both are conducting research on the K-T boundary in the northern Great Plains, including parts of southwestern North Dakota. For summaries of their presentations press here . Dr. Hartman is studying the response of nonmarine mollusks and Dr. Hoganson is studying the response of sharks. In October 1999, both made presentations at a symposium on the Hell Creek Formation at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.
February 1
Dr.
David Harwood, (University of Nebraska, and Dr.
Allan Ashworth (NDSU) are paleontologists who will discuss the
role of Antarctica in climate change. A significant amount of warming
and iceshelf disintegration has been detected in recent years on the Antarctic
peninsula. Concerns have been raised since the 1970s about the stability
of the West Antarctic Icesheet and the potential for catastropic sea level
rise. Even with larger amplitude climatic variations, those
on the scale of ice ages, the icesheets of Antarctica are viewed by a large
number of scientists as being inherently stable. The stabilists,
as they are known, state that there have been large polar icesheets in
Antarctica for about 15-20 million years. Dr. Harwood is the coauthor
of a hypothesis which has brought into questionthe
long-term stability of the icesheets. His evidence suggests that the icesheets
were significantly reduced in size at about 3 million years and the massive
icesheets of today are a feature of the last few million years. Allan
Ashworth has been studying the terrestrial
fossils of this warmer
phase and will discuss the paleoclimate indicated by those fossils.
February 8
Dr.
Leigh Welling , director of the Northern Great Plains Regional Earth
Science Applications Center (UND), an oceanographic paleoclimatologist
and Dr.
Douglas Kurtze (NDSU), a physicist, will discuss the record of climate
change in the oceans
and the role of the thermohaline
circulation as an
agent of climate
change .
February 15
Dr. Chuck Wood, chair of the Department of Space Studies (UND CAS) will discuss the role of volcanoes in climate change
February 22
Dr.
John Bluemle, State Geologist, North Dakota Geological Survey,
Bismarck, will discuss the glacial history of North Dakota.
Dr. Bluemle has several essays on the web describing glacial features (
ice
thrusting, drumlins,
dead
ice moraine,
Lake
Agassiz ) and glacially modified landscapes and river systems(
Turtle
Mountains and the Missouri
River ). He is very involved as the State Geologist in the ongoing
debate about Devils
Lake and because of his training as a glacial geologist brings
a historical perspective to the arguments. Dr. Bluemle's position
with respect to global warming is also clearly articulated in the latest
North Dakota Geological Survey Newsletter Global
Warming: A Geological Perspective
February 29
Dr.
Sherilyn Fritz , Department of Geology, (University of Nebraska),
will discuss the record of drought in the northern Great Plains and the
possible causes of drought cycles based on her research
and co-workers on diatoms.
Dr Leon
Osborne, professor of the Regional
Weather Information Center , (UND) will discuss climate cyclicity and
how it relates to natural terrestial and extraterrestial events and factors.
His will discuss sunspots
as one of many factors playing a role in climate change.
March 7
Dr. Allan Ashworth (NDSU) and Dr. Donald Schwert (NDSU), paleontologists, will discuss the response of organisms to climate change , past and future, based on their research on fossil insects.
March 21
Dr. Steven Dahlberg , meteorologist, Concordia College, will introduce the topic of global warming. This will be followed by presentations stressing the pros and cons of global warming by Dr. Will Gosnold , Geology Department, University of North Dakota, and Dr. John Enz , NDSU.
Dr. Gosnold has published research testing
the pattern of climate warming in North America
predicted by General Circulation Models.
His study used a new method,
borehole
paleoclimatology , that avoids the problems inherent in meteorological
record, that is:
urban heat island effects, interannual
variability, and short-length of record. In recent research, he has
linked climate change to flood recurrence (May, 2000 issue of Geotimes)
and has observed connections between climate-driven water loading at Devils
Lake, North Dakota and crustal flexure.