Research Professor John C. Moore from the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland will have an open lecture on how we could slow sea-level rise by stabilizing the ice sheets. The lecture is in English and it will take place on United Nations Day on 24th October at 4 PM at Arktikum in Rovaniemi.

Sea level rise will happen even if we stop using fossil fuels in the next few decades. Globally they are expected to rise by a metre this century costing tens of billions euro per year in coastal protection and forcing relocation of hundreds of millions of people and loss of many wetland ecosystems. Much of this rise is unavoidable even by cooling the climate because of ice sheet instabilities especially in Antarctica.

The research, led by John C. Moore, show that we could stabilize the ice sheets by modifying the way they slide over their beds, or by increasing the buttressing that resists them as they float across the Antarctic coastline. This would mean a series of huge engineering projects that would be massively challenging, but potentially far easier than dealing with a collapsing ice sheet and rapidly rising global sea levels. What will be presented sounds fantastical, but is under serious discussion in the scientific community. It is not a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emission, rather a potential solution for one symptom of warming, and one which will not work indefinitely.

Open lecture: Stopping the flood – Can we engineer ice sheets and save the homes of a billion people?
24th October at 4–5 pm
Polarium hall, Arktikum house (Pohjoisranta 4, Rovaniemi, Finland)
Free entry. Welcome!

More information:

Press release 14 March 2018: Geoengineer polar glaciers to slow sea-level rise 

Research Professor John C. Moore
Arctic Centre, University of Lapland
040 019 4850, john.moore.bnu(at)gmail.com

Communications Specialist Johanna Westelund
Arctic Centre, University of Lapland
040 484 4270, johanna.westerlund(at)ulapland.fi