Professor Nerilie Abram ‘Emerging tipping points in Antarctica’

Nerilie, climate scientist from ANU, will review evidence for climate change vulnerabilities in Antarctica, including using past, present and future perspectives to assess the potential for tipping points in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. This will include a description of the 2023/24 Denman Terrestrial Campaign to characterise the Denman Glacier, the deepest known glacier on Earth.

Abstract
Antarctic has not always responded to human-caused climate changes as expected, and the development of human-forced trends have potentially been masked by the very large natural variability in this region. This has resulted in low confidence in predicting future changes in this region and suggestions that some parts of the Antarctic system might be largely protected from the effects of climate change in the short to medium term, in contrast to the Arctic where amplified climate change impacts are evident and multiple abrupt climate tipping points are known to exist. This talk will review our evidence for climate change vulnerabilities in Antarctica, including using past, present and future perspectives to assess the potential for tipping points in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. This will include a description of the 2023/24 Denman Terrestrial Campaign – a major interdisciplinary campaign to characterise Denman Glacier which is the deepest known glacier on Earth and holds the potential to alone raise global sea levels by 1.5 metres.

Biography 
Professor Nerilie Abram is a climate scientist at the Australian National University. Her research uses Antarctic ice, tropical corals and climate models to understand how Earth’s climate system behaved over the last millennium, at both regional and global scales. Her multidisciplinary approaches have brought critical perspectives to modern day human-induced climate change, including bushfire, drought, the onset of anthropogenic warming and the ways that climate change is altering natural climate variability. She is a Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science and the Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, and was a coordinating lead author on the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. In 2024 she was elected as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Booking Link: https://www.trybooking.com/CTFWS

Booking
Lunchtime talks are held at 12.30 pm every Thursday from February to November. Talks last for 1 hour. We welcome donations by gold coins, notes, or electronically. The Friends use donations received at each talk to support Gardens’ programs and development and we thank all those who have donated. 

Unless otherwise indicated, talks are held in the ANBG Theatrette.

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