NASA expert to address Earth's vanishing polar ice, April 10, at UD

From research camps atop glaciers in some of the most remote regions of the planet, Waleed Abdalati, head of the Cryospheric Sciences Branch at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has witnessed remarkable changes in the Earth's ice cover.

Striking images taken by NASA satellites offer further visual evidence that all is not as frozen as it once was at the ends of the Earth.

On Thursday, April 10, Abdalati, who is one of the world's pre-eminent experts on the study of global climate change, will present “Dramatic Changes in Earth's Polar Ice: Are We Waking Sleeping Giants?” at 7:30 p.m. in the Gore Recital Hall at the University of Delaware's Louise and David Roselle Center for the Arts.

Abdalati will highlight the critical role that ice plays in shaping our environment and what the loss of ice cover may mean for life on Earth. The presentation will be enhanced by stunning animations produced by NASA.

The lecture is the latest installment in UD's William S. Carlson International Polar Year Events--a year-long series of lectures, receptions, research seminars, art exhibits, and film showings that was launched in February to increase public awareness of the importance of the world's polar regions.

Carlson, UD's president from 1946-50, was an active polar explorer who, like Abdalati, studied glaciers in Greenland, the world's largest island. Carlson recounted his adventures in the book Greenland Lies North, which was published in 1940.

Abdalati conducts research on high-latitude glaciers and ice sheets using satellite and airborne instruments. His research has included nine field expeditions to remote regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is a frozen reservoir for 8 percent of the fresh water on Earth, and ice caps in the Canadian Arctic.

As head of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Branch, Abdalati leads a group of scientists who work with satellites and aircraft instruments to understand Earth's changing ice cover.

Earth's cryosphere includes all of the ice in the sea and in freshwater lakes, rivers and streams, snow, glaciers, frozen ground and permafrost.