UB hosting International Arctic Workshop

Ever wonder how scientists can tell the climate from millions of years ago using ice drilled from a glacier? Now is your chance to learn from one of the world’s experts.

The 47th International Arctic Workshop is being hosted for the first time by UB, and two seminars are open to the public.

Eric Steig, professor of earth and space science at the University of Washington, will discuss ice-core sampling and paleo climate at 5:30 p.m. March 23 in 101 Davis Hall, North Campus.

A lecture on global warming in the artic by Gifford Miller, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will be held from 4-5 p.m. March 24 in 101 Davis.

The lectures are part of a three-day conference that is drawing people from around the world. Researchers from Scandinavia, Canada and Japan will gather with others from Texas, the state of Washington, California, New York and elsewhere.

“It’s a small, student-friendly conference on arctic climate change,” says Jason Briner, associate professor in the UB Department of Geology and chair of the conference’s organizing committee. “The University of Colorado hosts it every other year, and it travels around the world on the off years.”

UB landed the conference in part because the arctic climate program in the UB geology department has been growing, and Briner regularly attends the conference with some of his PhD students.

“It’s a conference where professors who wrote the latest paper in Science are presenting back-to-back with students giving their first talk,” Briner says. “We are very happy to host it.”

The event is sponsored by the UB Center for Geohazards Studies, the Department of Geology, the College of Arts and Sciences and the RENEW Institute.

More information is available at the Geohazards Studies website.