Visiting Researcher Seminar: Will the Earth become too hot for your grandchildren to handle?

Horizon sunrise over the earth

Australian Academy of Sciences Selby Public Lecture 2019

Will the Earth become too hot for your grandchildren to handle: the science and politics of carbon emissions and storage.


Abstract

The talk will describe the background of global atmospheric temperatures in both the distant and recent past. It will explain the definite connection between the carbon dioxide and methane content of the atmosphere and the average global surface temperature.

Various predictions into the future will be presented as well as useful ways of restoring a balance, including carbon storage and chemical reaction. The reactions of politicians to these ideas in different countries will be discussed.

Professor Herbert Huppert

Our speaker

Professor Herbert Huppert

Recipient of the Australian Academy of Sciences 2019 Selby Fellowship, Professor Herbert Huppert FRS, will visit Australia to present lectures across the nation. Australian-born Professor Huppert is Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Geophysics at Cambridge University, a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Foundation Director of the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics.

He has published extensively across a wide range of disciplines including geology, geophysics, mathematics, crystal growth, fluid mechanics, oceanography and meteorology. In particular, his research focuses on carbon dioxide sequestration and applying fluid-mechanical principles to the Earth sciences. 

His most cited paper, with co-author Steve Sparks, published in 1988, on the melting of granitic crust by the input of hot basaltic magma has been cited more than 1,110 times (according to Google Scholar), although neither author can explain this popularity.

Selby Fellowships are awarded to distinguished overseas scientists to visit scientific centres in Australia. Fellows are outstanding lecturers and help to increase public awareness of science.

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