The one-thousand-foot-thick ice shelves that fringe Antarctica help limit to global sea level rise by pinning back land ice and slowing its export into the Southern Ocean. However, some of these ice shelves are rapidly melting from below due to the encroachment of warm seawater. Over the past few years, TERC scientists and engineers have deployed the same instrumentation in use in Lake Tahoe to collect rare measurements of ocean water along the Antarctic coastline. These observations reveal how the trillions of tons of ice shelf meltwater produced each year interact with coastal ocean currents, with downstream effects felt globally. Our insights suggest that existing ocean models may incorrectly estimate how meltwater affects the mixing of heat from the sea surface to the deep ocean, a process critical to predicting the state of our planet in coming centuries.

Dr. Drew Friedrichs is a recent graduate from the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where he collaborated with TERC researchers on water-related projects spanning from backyard lakes to oceans within both polar circles. He has used his background in physics to explore the relationship between environmental fluid mechanics and ongoing climate change. In addition to his doctorate, Dr. Friedrichs has a M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis, a B.A. in Physics from Middlebury College, and is EIT certified in the state of California.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Presentation begins at 6:00 p.m.

Tickets purchased in advance are $10 through EventBrite and free for students with a student ID. Tickets at the door are $15. Refreshments and a no-host bar will be available from 5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. The lecture will begin at 6 p.m. in the Tahoe Center for Environmental Science on the UNR Lake Tahoe Campus.

For more information call 775-881-7560 or email [email protected].

Unable to make it in person? Join us at the specified date and time for a zoom webinar of the presentation: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/94609567184