The Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than almost any other place on the planet, visiting assistant professor Julia Wellner said.
Wellner studies the history of fast-melting ice caps to understand the possible future of the world’s climate.
‘Models of future changes must be constrained by real data and the historic record. The period for which we have written histories is very short, particularly in the Antarctic, where there are no indigenous peoples,’ said Wellner, who teaches in the Earth and Atmospheric Science Department. ‘Geological records of past changes are necessary so that we learn to understand the time scale of changes and the processes by which they happen.
Wellner came to UH from Rice University to collaborate in a joint study of climate change.
The study, ‘The Sedimentary Record of Tidewater Glacier Response to Holocene Climate Variability in the Antarctic Peninsula,’ is funded by a $250,000 National Science Foundation grant.
Wellner said studying geological data in Antarctica is important as the earth’s climate changes.
‘One of the greatest impacts of a potentially warming planet is rising sea level,’ She said. ‘As the planet warms, ice will melt. Melted ice becomes water that is added to the oceans, raising the global sea level. Such a rise in sea level will have an impact on all of the worlds’ coasts, especially low-lying areas like Galveston or New Orleans.
Understanding how the ice sheets have responded to different climates in the past is critical to predicting how the planet might change in the future, Wellner said.
The glacier study is an opportunity for UH students to travel to Antarctica as part of a research team.
‘This new project will run though 2011. I currently have two more cruises scheduled in the Antarctic, one in early 2010 and one in early 2012. I haven’t yet taken any UH students to the ice with me, but I am hoping to start that during the 2012 cruise,’ Wellner said.
