Monday, October 6
4:30 – 6 p.m.
Lory Student Center North Ballroom
Dr. Robert W. Corell is a Principal at the Global Environment Technology Foundation and Leads its Center for Energy and Climate Solutions. He has several academic appointments: Senior Faculty Fellow, College of Arts and Science and its School of Environment, Arts and Society, Florida International University. Professor II at both the University of the Arctic’s EALÁT Institute and held the Arctic Chair at the University of Tromsø, Norway (2009-2012). He was appointed Vice Chancellor of the Academy of Science and Art in 2012. He is a Member of the Modeling Team at Climate Interactive Initiative, Council Member of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) and Lead Author of GEA’s Chapter 3 on Environment and Energy and Co-Chair of Phase II of the GEA. He is Founder in 2008 and Chair of the Global Climate Action Initiative established to assist international negotiators (US, China, Indonesia, etc.) in the UNFCCC and beyond processes and in 2010. Dr. Corell founded the non-profit Global Science Associates, an interdisciplinary nucleus for the world’s best science experts and collaboratories. He lead the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005) and most recently lead a comprehensive study of governance issues in the circumpolar Arctic. In 2013, head chaired and was the lead author of the 2013 UNEP Year Book on “The View from the Top Searching for Responses to a Rapidly Changing Arctic”. He was recognized with the other scientists for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments and in 2010, Dr. Corell was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Veterinarian Medicine by the Norges Veterinærhøgskole (Norwegian School of Veterinarian Science). Corell, R.W., Lead Author, UNEP Year Book, View from the Top: Searching for responses to a rapidly changing Arctic (2013).
Dr. Corell is actively engaged in research concerned with the sciences of global change and the interface between science and public policy, particularly research activities that are focused on global and regional climate change, related environmental issues, and science to facilitate understanding of vulnerability and sustainable development, for example, he is the lead Editor of “The Arctic in the World Affairs: A North Pacific Dialogue on Arctic Transformation”, a book released in December 2013. Dr. Corell was Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation where he had oversight for the Atmospheric, Earth, Ocean Sciences, Polar Programs and was Chair for over a decade of the United States Global Change Research Program reporting to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. He was also a professor and academic administrator at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Corell is an oceanographer and engineer by background and training, having received Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees at Case Western Reserve University and MIT with PhD graduate studies in oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He has also held appointments at the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Washington, and Case Western Reserve University. He has published several dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters during the past decade, a recent example is the section of the book, “2052 – A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years” by Jorgen Randers, that provides mid-century global climate projections.
Our Earth’s Future: The Arctic from a Global Perspective
Why Are Changes in the Arctic Important for the Rest of the World?
The Arctic region is changing and the changes are accelerating at rates and levels that has not been experienced by modern humankind or humankind’s ancestors for at least 800,000 years, and quite possibly for millions of years. The Arctic is warming 2-3 times as rapidly as the Earth as a whole. It has long been viewed as a wilderness detached from mainstream societies. However, the Arctic and its peoples are already experiencing realities from climate change — significantly warmer temperatures, melting ice, increased industrial activities, and the possible development of the region’s rich natural resources. All of these have global implications affecting weather in the mid-latitudes, sea level rise around the planet, the likelihood of an increasingly open Arctic Ocean for shipping, tourist cruise ships, natural resource development, and a fishing industry that is already moving further north than ever before. The consequences of interactions and feedbacks between regions of the northern hemisphere and the Arctic on climate change, ecosystems, human health, economic and resource development, and societies have the potential to substantively effect the Arctic countries, much of Europe, North America and the rest of the planet. Our common future is a changing “Future Earth.”