MADISON – Is global warming affecting hurricanes?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Kerry Emanuel will consider that question during a free public lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, February 22, at 1800 Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Drive, UW-Madison.
His talk, "Is Global Warming Affecting Hurricanes?," will describe his analysis of historical records of hurricane activity. Reviewing the evidence that such activity is closely linked to sea surface temperature and the environmental processes that affect sea surface temperature, he has sought to determine how much is tied to human-caused global climate change.
Time magazine named Emanual one of its 100 most influential people in 2006. He is a professor in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science and author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. His paper published in August 2005 in the journal Nature on the increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years attracted widespread attention when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast that same month.
Emanuel's talk is part of the Roy F. Weston Distinguished Global Sustainability Lecture Series at UW-Madison. Weston, an alumnus of the university, founded Weston Solutions, Inc., an international environmental and redevelopment firm.
The Weston lectures are sponsored by the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (part of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UW-Madison.
For more information, contact Carmela Diosana, (608) 265-0604.