Ohio Northern to Host Conference on Climate Change

Ohio Northern University students and faculty are invited to take part in the Conference on Global Climate Change, scheduled for Saturday, April 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Dicke Forum. The conference is sponsored by Northwest Ohio International Affairs Conference (NOIAC), which is made up of Bluffton University, Defiance College, Heidelberg College, Ohio Northern University, Tiffin University and the University of Findlay. Three guest speakers, Dr. Todd H. Albert from Bowling Green State University, Dr. W. Berry Lyons from The Ohio State University and Dr. David R. Smith from Ohio Northern University, will make presentations and take part in breakout sessions during the conference. Albert, an instructor of geography at Bowling Green State University, will present “Changing Earth’s Climate.” He received his Ph.D. in geography from Florida State University, his M.S. in atmospheric sciences from The Ohio State University, and his BS in geography from the University of Florida. Albert has done research in the Italian Alps, the Colorado Rockies, the High Andes of Peru and the Greenland ice sheet. He has received numerous grants and awards, including the CIRES Innovative Research Grant in 2002-3 and a NASA Graduate Research Fellowship, both from the University of Colorado. He has spoken on topics such as remote sensing techniques for ice-area classification applied to the tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap, global land ice measurement from space, assessment of glacier mass balances from small tropical glaciers to the large ice sheet of Greenland, measuring and modeling surface height changes on the Greenland ice sheet, variability and forcing of climate parameters on the Greenland ice sheet, Greenland ice sheet climatology and surface energy balance modeling, and recent changes on the tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru. Lyons, director of the Byrd Polar Research Center and a professor at the School of Earth Science at The Ohio State University, will present “Global Climate Change: Lessons from the Cryosphere.” Lyons received his BA in geology from Brown University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical oceanography from the University of Connecticut. He currently is a distinguished professor in the college of math and physical sciences. He also is a fellow of GSA, American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Geographical Union. He recently stepped down after 11 years as the lead principal investigator of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research (MCM-LTER) program, one of the two Antarctic LTER sites. Lyons is one of the U.S. representatives on the Geosciences Scientific Group of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR). He is an associate editor for “Chemical Geology” and “Applied Geochemistry,” and he is a member of the AGU’s Book Board. Lyons has co-authored over 190 scientific publications and has been the primary supervisor to 33 graduate students. His research spans the areas of aqueous geochemistry, environmental geochemistry, biogeochemistry and climate change. Smith is professor of geography at ONU and will speak on “Drought, Deluge and Dearth: Climate Change and Political Conflict.” He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and he spent two years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His publications and research focus on water and conflict over water in world and regional social development issues in Central Asia in particular. He recently has traveled to Iran and North Korea. Smith is a board member of the International Research Foundation for Development (IRFD) and a member of its governing council with special consultative status with the UN. He has received travel and research grants from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Fulbright and other programs. He recently taught classes at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. He is the author of a soon-to-be published book titled “The Aral Sea Basin: Evolution and Legacy of an Environmental Catastrophe.” While the event is free and open to the entire ONU campus, there will be a limited number of student and faculty members in the official ONU delegation. To become part of that delegation, contact Michael Loughlin, professor of history, at ext. 2092 or m-loughlin@ onu.edu Saturday’s event is supported by ONU’s Academic Affairs, Phi Beta Delta and the departments of biological and allied health sciences and history, politics and justice.