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Hello everyone I just received this note about what promises to be an interesting lecture on climate change to be held at Middlebury College next week. Please refer to the details below. Hope to see you there. Lesley-Ann ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 15:54:31 -0400 From: "Wiseman, Janet" <[log in to unmask]> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Middlebury College Environmental Affairs Lecture **************** The Middlebury College Environmental Studies Program and Department of Geography present: The 1999 Scott Margolin Environmental Affairs Lecture Michael C. MacCracken U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) "Global Warming: The Increasing Effects of Human Activities on Climate" Wednesday, April 28, 1999 7 pm, Geonomics Library, Middlebury College FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 802/443-5710 or [log in to unmask] for directions Michael MacCracken is executive director of the National Assessment Coordination Office, an office established by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) in the fall of 1997. The office is charged with helping to initiate and organize an assessment of the consequences of climate change for the United States. About the talk: Emissions from fossil fuel combustion and from deforestation and non-sustainable agriculture are releasing carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, thereby altering atmospheric composition. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide concentration has increased over 30% and the methane concentration has more than doubled. Paleoclimatic evidence and numerical climate models provide strong indications that these increases in the concentrations of greenhouse gases will lead to long-term global warming, moderated in the near-term by the cooling influences of sulfate and biomass aerosol emissions and obscured at early times by natural variations in the climate. Evidence, including rising ocean and land temperatures, melting glaciers, rising sea level, and increasing rates of precipitation suggest that human activities are now having a discernible influence on the global climate. Projections for the next century are that global average temperatures will rise 1 to 3.5 C and sea level will rise by 10 to 95 cm by the year 2100 if emissions are not reduced below projections, and that substantial changes will occur as well even if emissions start to be curtailed early in the next century. These types of changes will lead to a range of possible environmental impacts that will affect every region of the world. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lesley-Ann L. Dupigny-Giroux, Ph.D. * * Assistant Professor & VT State Climatologist * * University of Vermont * * Department of Geography * * Old Mill Building * * P.O. Box 54170 * * Burlington, Vermont 05405-4170 * * U.S.A. * * * * (802) 656-2146 (phone) http://www.uvm.edu/~geograph/dupigny.html * * (802) 656-3042 (fax) http://www.uvm.edu/~ldupigny/sc * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *