21. marts 2013

Inauguration lecture: Kurt Kjær

Professor Kurt Kjær on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, North Greenland

Iceland, Siberia and North Greenland are some of the places which have put to the patina on the torn field boots of the newly appointed professor of geology Kurt Kjær. The common theme through the Arctic expeditions has for Kurt Kjær been an ambition of luring the barren landscapes of their information about the climate changes which have taken place during the last couple of hundred thousand years.

Lately Kurt Kjær and his team have received increased attention because of their research into the melting of the marginal areas of the inland ice – the areas where meltwater runs out into fjords and bays. In this work it was not only modern satellite-photos which were used as documentation. Old black-and-white photographs from the 1930ies taken by pilots flying in one-engine aircrafts with open cockpits were also included. This research project has made it possible to put today’s climate events into a time-perspective which hasn’t been done before. The results of this work have been disseminated widely in Danish as well as international media. Apart from being Science Director at the Natural History Museum of Denmark Kurt Kjær is also one of the driving forces behind the Centre for GeoGenetics – a Center of Excellence.

Kurt Kjær holds his inauguration lecture

Friday 22nd March 2013, at 2:00 pm

Geological Museum Auditorium

Øster Voldgade 5

1350 Copenhagen

 Title:

     'The latest 45 seconds of Earth history'.