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Seminars

Seminars




How much for just the polar bear? Oil development in the arctic and the management of environmental risk

John Ash

5pm, Monday 9th October 2006, Department of Geography seminar room

The Arctic biome has for many years been a focus of conflict because of the tension between wilderness and natural values, and the search for resources including hydrocarbons, non-ferrous metals and marine bulk protein. As limits on the supply of liquid crude oil render Arctic exploration and production increasing attractive, and as evidence of global warming becomes ever more obvious in the Polar Regions, decision strategies will have to be determined for managing the risk that is inevitably associated with industrial processes. This presentation considers the issues in making such risk management decisions.

John has spent much of his career addressing problems in environmental risk management. As an oceanographer and submariner in the Royal Navy he was involved in the collection of data in the Arctic Ocean to support the study of thinning in the polar ice pack. Selected to lead a team of Russian researchers at Cambridge University examining radionuclide pollution in the Northern Seas, he remained to read for a Masters degree the dissertation of which was a study of the policing of biomarine resources in the Southern Ocean. John was later assigned to undertake the initial design work for the Navy Department's Environmental Management System. In 1998 he retired from active duty to devote himself to research into environmental risk management in the Polar Regions. He has also held the British Safety Council Fellowship at the Judge Institute of Management Studies (now the Judge Business School) where the focus of his research was the management of dynamic risk problems in operational environments.

Sliding and slipping in the trail of Saint George - Memories of debris flow/glaciology fieldwork in the Caucasus Mountains, Summer 2006

Slide-illustrated lunchtime talk by Olga Tutubalina

Wednesday 13th September 2006
1pm, SPRI Lecture Theatre

All welcome. Bring your own sandwiches.

Ice and Environmental Change around the Norwegian-Greenland Sea

A Nansen Seminar in celebration of 100 years of Norwegian independence
Scott Polar Research Institute - 19 October 2005

Norwegian Embassy, London

Programme

10:20 - Welcome by the Director and the Norwegian Embassy

10:30 to 17:00 - Seminar Presentations

One hundred years in the Norwegian Sea
R. Dickson (CEFAS, Lowestoft, UK) and S. Østerhus (BCCR, Univ. of Bergen, Norway)

Observed recent and predicted future temperature and precipitation change around the Norwegian-Greenland Sea
(I. Hansen-Bauer, Meteorological Institute, Oslo, Norway)

Recent and future changes in Arctic sea-ice cover
S. Laxon (University College London, UK)

Recent changes in the flow of the Greenland Ice Sheet
E. Rignot (Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA, USA)

13.00 to 13.45 - Lunch in the Institute's Museum

Glaciers, ice caps and climate change on Svalbard
J.O. Hagen (Oslo Univ., Norway), J.A. Dowdeswell (Cambridge Univ., UK)

Growth and decay of the Eurasian Ice Sheet over the last glacial cycle
J.I. Svendsen (Univ. of Bergen, Norway)

Ice streams on the Norwegian-Svalbard margin at the Last Glacial Maximum
J.A. Dowdeswell (Cambridge Univ., UK), D. Ottesen (Norwegian Geological Survey)

Large slides and geohazards on the Norwegian continental margin
A. Solheim (ICG, Oslo, Norway), J. Mienert (Tromsø Univ., Norway), D.Long (British Geological Survey)

Palaeocurrents and water-mass flow out of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea (I.N. McCave, Cambridge Univ., UK)

Multidecadal and centennial climate variations in the Sub-Arctic during the last millennia - is there a tropical connection?
Eystein Jansen, Tore Furevik, Richard Telford, Bjorn Malmgren: (Univ. of Bergen, Norway)

17:00 to 17:30 - Question and Answer Session on Environmental Change Issues

17:30 to 18:45 - Drinks reception in the Museum of the Institute

Please notify us via the Institute's main contact details if you wish to attend the Meeting.