Great Decisions Topic: The Melting Arctic Ice
The Melting Arctic Ice and its Relationship to Climate Change
Speaker Date: Oct. 08, 2021
Quoting from a recent article in Rolling Stones, “The thawing of the Arctic is one of the biggest stories of our time, even if it is playing out at a pace and in a way that virtually guarantees most people will pay little attention or no attention to it.
What’s going on is not a future concern or simply a tragedy for polar bears; the warming is already having a tremendous impact on our world and may help explain much of the extreme weather this summer, especially in the US and in Western Europe.”
More extreme weather is not the only alarming consequence of a melting Arctic. The thawing of the permafrost, the frozen ground beneath the snow and ice in the Arctic, is releasing a greenhouse gas that is 25 times as potent as CO2.
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Brian Magi Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dr. Magi, an Atmospheric Scientist professor at UNCC, will share insight from his research in the relationship among fires, climate, lightening and humans to help us better understand the role that the melting Arctic ice has in impacting our climate.
Brian Magi, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
EDUCATION:
Ph. D. University of Washington-2006
- S. University of Arizona-1998
PROFESSIONAL EXPEREINCE:
2017-Present Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Geography and Earth Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
2011-2017 Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Science
2011-2011 Associate Research Scholar, Princeton University
Professor Magi works with students using his research from exploring air quality and data-oriented questions about the relationship among fires, climate, lightening and humans. He also explores using datasets related to climate to better understand the Earth system. His teaching includes courses on global environment change, physical meteorology, atmospheric chemistry.