Water is essential to all life on Earth. With the world population growing beyond 7 billion individuals, the demand for water resources will expand dramatically during a time when climate change is expected to alter the hydrologic cycle and impact the current distribution of water. What does this mean for people? This program will explore how water is monitored, measured, and modeled in Latin America and present our current understanding of changes anticipated over the next half century.
Dr. Douglas Alsdorf and his colleagues study the Amazon and Congo River Basins. He and his team are focused on understanding the massive amounts of water that move through these rivers and their associated wetlands. They are addressing questions such as: How does water fill and decant these systems? What is the relationship of the water volumes to the global water and carbon cycles?
Dr. Alvaro Montenegro’s research interests encompass aspects of climate change and climate variability, particularly physical and biogeochemical processes, occurring at the scale of continents and the planet. He looks into these problems mainly using climate models, with a concentration on the role of the carbon cycle, while also employing observations. Some examples of scientific questions that Dr. Montenegro has attempted to answer include: What will climate be like 5000 years from now if we burn all available fossil fuel reserves? Will large scale planting of trees worldwide cool or warm the climate? Could ocean acidification have caused the global extinction event 250 million years ago?
This event is sponsored by the Byrd Polar Research Center, Center for Latin American Studies, and Department of Geography. Please contact Jason Cervenec or call 614.688.0080 for more information.
RSVP for the event and parking information here.
The two public lectures of the evening will also be live broadcast starting at 7:45 pm on March 6.
