Gustavus alumnus Dr. Jason Smerdon ’98 will present a lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 15 titled “The Arctic as a Canary in the Coal Mine: Circumpolar Change in a Warming World,” as part of the campus-wide Global Insight program, which this year focuses on the world’s Circumpolar Region.
Smerdon is currently Interim Co-Director of the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is also the Storke-Doherty Lecturer, a jointly appointed position at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia. Smerdon also teaches at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He was the recipient of Gustavus’s First Decade Award for early professional achievement in 2008 and has published numerous research articles on climate change and climate variability. He wrote the student companion to the popular-science book Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future by Edmond Mathez.
Smerdon’s Global Insight talk, which will take place in Room 101 of Beck Hall, will place the rapid and accelerating climate change in the Arctic in the larger context of global climate change. He will explain why the Arctic region is warming at the most accelerated rate on the planet and discuss some key vulnerabilities. The consequences of these changes and the risks they pose will also be highlighted.
While on campus, Smerdon will also meet with physics students and speak at the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society induction ceremony on Wednesday, March 14. He will also deliver the chapel homily on Thursday, March 15 at 10 a.m.
More information about this year’s Global Insight program can be found online at gustavus.edu/globalinsight. All events are free and open to the public.
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