Professor Julian A. Dowdeswell

Director
Scott Polar Research Institute University of Cambridge, UK

Professor J.A. Dowdeswell has been Professor of Physical Geography and Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge since 2002. He is also Brian Buckley Fellow in Polar Science at Jesus College,Cambridge.

Julian graduated from the University of Cambridge with first classhonours and studied for a Masters Degree in the University of Colorado before returning to Cambridge for his doctorate. Julian has research interests in glaciologyand glacial geology,working on the form and flow of glaciers and ice caps andtheir response to climate change, and the links between former ice sheets andthe marine-geological record, using a variety of satellite, airborne and shipborne geophysical instruments. He has worked in many parts of the Arctic(including the Canadian North, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard and the RussianArctic islands, together with the Norwegian-Greenland Sea, the Barents Sea andBaffin Bay), and also in Antarctica, in a series of field research projectsover the past 30 years. He has written over 250 scientific papers and eightbooks.

Julian was awarded the Polar Medal by Her Majesty the Queen for 'outstanding contributions to glacier geophysics' and has also received the Founder's Gold Medal from the Royal Geographical Society(2008). In 2011 he was awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal by the European Geosciences Union for outstanding contributions to the study of polar ice massesand to the understanding of the processes and patterns of sedimentation inglacier-influenced marine environments’. In 2014 he was awarded the IASC Medalof the International Arctic Science Committee.

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Day 1

Friday, July 1st, 2016

11:20 Ice and Environmental Change – How Ice and Environmental Change will Impact Geospatial Data Collection in the Future

Attend this exclusive session from a world-renowned expert on Ice and the Environment to understand how changes in Ice are shaping requirements for geospatial capabilities today. As you may know glaciers and ice sheets are hundreds to thousands of metres deep and cover vast areas of the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as many mountain regions at lower latitudes. Sea ice is the frozen sea surface, only a few metres thick but covering vast areas
of the polar seas. This is important in a global context for several reasons, including the links between ice-sheet melting and sea-level rise and those between sea-ice formation and the thermohaline circulation of the global oceans.

The climatic context of the past 150 years is of a relatively cool 19th Century and a marked warming since about the 1980s, which many workers have linked to increasing levels of greenhouse gases from anthropogenic sources. Temperatures over the next hundred years are predicted to rise by between about 1.5 and 4 deg. C. The polar regions, especially the Arctic, will warm preferentially over this period due to a self-reinforcing process known as ice-albedo feedback. The response of both glaciers and sea ice to warming since the 1980s has been melting. Glaciers in most parts of the globe are thinning and retreating, the exception being East Antarctica. The extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic has also been reduced to about half the levels of 40 years ago.

Less sea-ice formation may mean changes in the strength of the ocean circulation. Glacier and ice-sheet melting is, together with thermal expansion of the oceans, the cause of rising sea levels. Sea level today is rising by about 3 mm per year, and may rise by a total of between 0.2 m and about a metre over the coming century. Attend this session to benefit from:

● The latest research into Ice and Environmental change so you can build a more informed view on a topic gaining increasing attention and investment from nations in the Western World
● News and developments from hard-to-penetrate regions changing the requirements for geospatial capability and how this will impact your roles in future places of work
● New thinking about future challenges that could be solved by investing differently in geospatial intelligence