AMS Congressional Briefing

Mathematics of Ice to Aid Global Warming Forecasts

Ken Golden, professor of mathematics at the University of Utah, made a presentation to Congressional representatives at a Capitol Hill briefing on his work on polar sea ice as both an indicator and regulator of climate change.  

Golden discussed polar sea ice and its function as a primary habitat for microbial communities and how it sustains marine food webs.  He spoke of a new understanding of how salt water flows through sea ice, which promises to improve forecasts of how global warming will affect earth's icepacks and how polar ecosystems may respond.

Footage from his recent Antarctic research expedition was also presented. 

Previous AMS Congressional Lunch Briefings:

• November 2006, The Necessity of Mathematics:  From Google to Counterterrorism to Sudoku, presented by Amy Langville, professor of mathematics at the College of Charleston.
• November 2005, From Katrina Forward:  How Mathematics Helps Predict Storm Surges, presented by Clint Dawson, professor at the University of Texas and a member of the Center for Subsurface Modeling in the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences; and Joannes Westerink, associate professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame.
• September 2004, Homeland Security:  What Can Mathematics Do? presented by Fred S. Roberts, professor of mathematics and director of the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) at Rutgers University.
• July 2003, Mathematics is Biology's Next Microscope, Only Better; Biology is Mathematics' Next Physics, Only Better  presented by Joel E. Cohen, Laboratory of Populations, Rockefeller and Columbia Universities.
• February 2002, Mathematics, Patterns and Homeland Security presented by Ingrid Daubechies, Princeton University.
• July 2001, Adding It Up:  Helping Children Learn Mathematics, a briefing on this National Research Council Report presented by Deborah Loewenberg Ball and Hyman Bass, University of Michigan and by Roger Howe, Yale University.
• Other previous briefings include:
  What Does Water Know About Mathematics by Mary Fannett Wheeler, The University of Texas at Austin
  Calculating the Secrets of Life:  Mathematics in Medicine by DeWitt Sumners, Florida State University
  Eavesdropping on the Internet:  Mathematics and Policy by Carl Pomerance, University of Georgia
  Mathematical Transcriptions of the Real World:  Fingerprints, Magnetic Resonance and Video by Ronald Coifman, Yale University