Department of Earth and Environmental Science
Climate Research Updates
Updates from the Thermal Sciences and Energy Conversion Group: (link)
- Noam Lior presented An introduction to the Panel and to the present (2009) situation in sustainable energy development, Energy at the ECOS 2009 World Energy Panel. Aug. 31 - Sept. 3, 2009.
- Noam Lior was invited to give a keynote presentation at the 1st International Nuclear and Renewable Energy Conference (INREC10), presenting The current status and possible sustainable paths to future energy “generation” and use. March 21-24, 2010.
- Noam Lior was elected as Chairman of the International Scientific Committee and member of the Management Board of the Centre for Sustainable Development of Energy, Water, and Environment Systems.
- Noam Lior was invited to give the keynote presentation Sustainability analysis applied to future energy development at the 2010 National Meeting of the Korea Society of Energy and Climate Change in Seoul, Korea.
- Noam Lior was invited to give a talk about Water desalination: Status, challenges and potential at the 3rd International Workshop on Solar and Waste – Heat Powered Desalination
and Cooling (2010) in Seoul, Korea.
- Noam Lior acted as Conference Co-Chair and President of the International Scientific Committee at ECOS 2011, the 24th Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems in Novi Sad, Serbia. July 4-7, 2011.
- Noam Lior was invited to give the keynote presentation Sustainable Energy Development: The Present (2011) Situation and Possible Paths to The Future at the 6th Conference of the International Center for Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Sept. 26-29, 2011.
- Noam Lior was invited to present The present energy situation and possible sustainable energy paths to the future at the IV Nanotechnology International Forum Rusnanotech in Moscow, Russia. October 26-28, 2011.
Recent Publications:
- Honguang Jin, Noam Lior, Xiliang Zhang. Energy and its sustainable development for China: Editorial introduction and commentary. Energy – The international journal, 35 (2010) 4246–4256.
- Na Zhang, Noam Lior. Use of Low/Mid-Temperature Solar Heat for Thermochemical Upgrading of Energy, With Application to a Novel Chemically-Recuperated Gas-Turbine Power Generation (SOLRGT) System. ASME Paper IMECE2009-13037, Proc. IMECE2009, 2009 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, November 13-19, 2009, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, ASME, NY.
- Winner of the ASME 2010 Edward F. Obert Award, given for the most outstanding paper on thermodynamics authored during the preceding 2 calendar years.
Updates from Roger Raufer: (link)
- Roger Raufer co-authored a chapter entitled "Emissions Trading" with MES graduate Sudha Iyer in the recently published Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation.
Updates from the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Climate group: (link)
- Coming Up: Irina Marinov will serve as a session chair for the upcoming Ocean Sciences Meeting 2012. The session topic is "Improving the representation of plankton ecology in Earth System Models".
- Irina Marinov and postdocs Rafaelle Bernadello and Svetlana Milutinovic will present talks and posters at this conference.
- Svetlana Milutinovic, an oceanographer who recently completed her PhD at the University of Bergen, Norway has recently joined our group as a postdoctoral investigator (January 2012). She will be working on satellite remote sensing data analysis and on bringing concepts of biological evolution into marine ecosystem models used for climate predictions.
- Anne Cabre, a PhD graduate from the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain and a postdoc in Physics in the University of Pennsylvania, has recently joined our group (Jan 2012). She will be working on IPCC model intercomparison with senior undergraduate Shirley Leung.
- Irina Marinov and postdoc Raffaele Bernardello participated in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Open Science Conference: Climate Research in Service to Society. Denver, Colorado (Oct 2011). (link)
- Irina received the “Oustanding Poster Presentation” award for “Predicting the behavior of ocean ecology in a changing climate: theory and coupled model intercomparison.” (link)
- Irina was invited to serve as an Expert Reviewer for the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (IPCC WGI AR5)."
Updates from the Sea Level Group: (link)
- Ben Horton received a $1.5 million grant to predict sea-level rise and flooding from hurricanes.
- Ben Horton is a co-author on the Sea Level chapter for the upcoming "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (IPCC WGI AR5)."
Updates from Eric Orts: (link)
Updates from Jane Willenbring's Penn-Cosmogenic Isotope Laboratory:
NSF Grant to fund Antarctica Research!
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $287,416 to Jane Willenbring, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and an additional $292,568 grant to geology professors Adam Lewis and Ken Lepper of North Dakota State University. The grant funding was used to conduct field research in Antarctica in late 2011 and will be used to support graduate and undergraduate students as research continues through 2014.
The research team that traveled to Antarctica in the austral summer of 2011-2012 included Dr. Jane Willenbring of the University of Pennsylvania Earth and Environmental Science Department and Penn Ph.D. student Marcie Occhi. The field expedition team included graduate student Felix Zamora, Brighton, CO, senior undergraduate student Ashley Steffen of Bismarck, N.D., and Dr. Adam Lewis from NDSU.
The research team spent approximately eight weeks tent-camping in Antarctica from early November to early January in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. The goal of the group’s research is to provide a new paleoclimate record that helps resolve the frequency and rate of melting along margins of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during times of past warmth. This will help address some fundamental questions in Antarctic science and will also provide specific benefits to allied research in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.
The group’s research, titled “Collaborative Research: Activation of high-elevation alluvial fans in the Transantarctic Mountains - a proxy for Plio-Pleistocene warmth along East Antarctic ice margins,” focuses on using fans of sand and gravel deposited along mountain slopes as a record for melt-water production, which in turn is a proxy for inland warmth. These relatively young fans, channels, and debris-flow levees stand out as highly visible evidence for the presence of melt water in an otherwise frozen landscape. Limited data from terrestrial ice margins and significant unknowns regarding regional climate mean that Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level rise during past warm phases is unknown. Today, temperatures are too cold for ice or snow to melt, so there are no modern streams running down hillsides.
This study is expected to produce a unique geological record of inland melting from sites adjacent to ice sheet margins and at similar elevations. Results can be compared to models of orbital forcing, and marine and ice core records to help determine what controls regional climate along margins of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Early results suggest melting happens every 50,000 years, which correlates well with the earth’s orbital cycles.
The research team returned from Antarctica with approximately 500 pounds of rock, ice and sediment to be analyzed. The team's efforts will concentrate on geomorphology, sedimentology and stratigraphy of the deposits and a key contribution of the work will be to determine the age of the sediments through cosmogenic dating of the sediments at the Penn Cosmogenic Isotope Laboratory and through a collaboration with Dr. Tibor Dunai, at the University of Cologne, Germany. Additionally, Dr. Douglas Kowalewski, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Jesse Johnson, University of Montana will provide climate and ice sheet modeling support.
Ongoing research in Antarctica associated old lake beds found in Antarctica with was featured in a NOVA television production titled “Secrets Beneath the Ice” on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/secrets-beneath-ice.html
For more information:
Dr. Jane Willenbring, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/earth/willenbring.html
International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences
http://www.isaes2011.org.uk/programme.html
National Science Foundation
Antarctic fossils paint a picture of a much warmer continent
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111913
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/31/10676
NOVA on PBS
“Secrets Beneath the Ice”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/secrets-beneath-ice.html
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