Global warning
Global warming is big news these days--and Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State geologist who's one of the world's leading experts on climate change--is having one sizzling summer.
Thompson's list of accomplishments is long:
He's been named one of "America's Best" by Time and CNN; featured as one of "25 leaders who are fighting to stave off the planetwide catastrophe" in Rolling Stone; awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the environmental science equivalent of a Nobel Prize; named a Distinguished University Professor; and made the subject of a book, Thin Ice, which comes out in paperback this summer, as just a few examples.
But while some people might be content to retire with those accolades, Thompson shows no signs of slowing.
This summer, his work is highlighted in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's long-awaited global warming documentary, for which Thompson was a consultant.
He's also just released the most comprehensive research to date on high-altitude tropical ice caps, combining data collected from seven locations north and south of the equator, from the Andes in South America to the Himalayas in Asia.
The research--just published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--posits that the earth experienced a major shift to a cooler climate 5,000 years ago, and is currently in the throes of a shift back to a much warmer climate.
"If what happened 5,000 years ago were to happen today, it would have far-reaching social and economic implications for the entire planet," Thompson said. "The take-home message is that global climate can change abruptly, and with 6.5 billion people inhabiting the planet, that's serious."
Given the extremely warm temperatures of the past 50 years, Thompson predicts the tropical ice caps will soon melt.
"Approximately 70 percent of the world's population now lives in the tropics," he said, "so when climate changes there, the impacts are likely to be enormous."
Read the full story on Thompson's research, by Earle Holland of Ohio State Research News.
Related research by Lonnie Thompson:
