Discovery Lecture Series-Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

Warming oceans, melting ice, and rising seas

By Dr. Ian Fenty, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA’s measurements of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and ice show evidence of accelerating global warming. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere due to human activity have caused the oceans to warm and the polar ice sheets and high mountain glaciers to melt. Ocean warming, melting glaciers, and melting ice sheets are driving up global sea levels at a rate not seen since the end of the last ice age. In this presentation, I will review the evidence of ocean warming, ice melting, and global sea level rise, discuss current projections of future global sea level rise, and describe some current NASA research to study the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Dr. Ian Fenty received his Ph.D. in Climate Physics and Chemistry from MIT in 2010 and now works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a climate scientist. In his research Dr. Fenty collaborates with JPL oceanographers, glaciologists, and other scientists to reconstruct the circulation of Earth’s high-latitude oceans over the past two decades. In addition, Dr. Fenty is a co-investigator of NASA’s “Oceans Melting Greenland” mission.