Past Event
Online
Seminar

The Real Reason Greenland Determines Our Fate: Melting Ice and Drowning Coasts

RSVP Required Open to the Public
The Statue of Liberty underwater.

The recent media blitz about Greenland – and Donald Trump’s interest in purchasing it – has dwarfed a much more important story about the world’s largest island, Greenland, and the impact of its melting ice on people throughout the world.   

Polar ice sheets are shrinking rapidly, fueled by rising global temperatures both in the atmosphere and ocean. The Greenland ice sheet has the potential to raise global sea levels by an astonishing 23 feet were it to melt away completely. Slowing the rate of ice loss is therefore of utmost concern not only for coastal communities, but to avoid almost unfathomable shocks to global economies, infrastructure, military bases and the livelihoods of billions of people. Some experts now propose that sea level rise should be a policy metric in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  

To learn more about Greenland’s ice sheets and the opportunities to slow down sea level rise, please join a discussion featuring distinguished experts Sarah Das, Polar and Climate Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Rafe Pomerance, Senior Policy Fellow at Woodwell Climate Research Center and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Development. Margaret Williams, Senior Fellow of the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative will moderate. Together, they will examine the implications of Greenland’s melting ice sheet for the U.S. and beyond, while proposing actionable solutions to address this urgent crisis.

Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Arctic Initiative, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Rethink Energy Florida

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the Belfer Center's YouTube channel. Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

About the Speakers

Dr. Sarah Das is a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a faculty member of the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. Dr. Das studies the dynamics and history of ice sheets including their interaction with the atmosphere, ocean and solid earth. She has led over 20 multi-disciplinary teams on scientific expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica, providing new insight into how climate change is impacting our polar regions and why that matters to all of us. She also leads efforts to develop science-based solutions to improve coastal community resilience to rapidly rising seas, trains the next generation of ocean and climate scientists, and regularly shares the importance of understanding climate change with policy makers, practitioners, and the public. Dr. Das currently serves on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Climate Science Advisory Panel, and recently completed two terms as a member of the Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rafe Pomerance is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. He is former Chairman of Arctic 21, a network of organizations focused on communicating the unraveling of the Arctic as a result of climate change to policy makers and the public. Arctic 21, which operates under the auspices of Woodwell Climate Research Center, seeks to establish a framework for Arctic policy based on the question, “what is the Arctic we have to have to sustain the global climate system?” Pomerance is also a consultant to the nonprofit ReThink Energy Florida raising awareness on the impact of sea level rise in the state. Pomerance has previously served as President of Friends of the Earth, senior associate for climate change and ozone depletion policy at the World Resources Institute, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Development (1993-99) and climate negotiator, and President of the Climate Policy Center. He was a founder and Chairman of the Board of American Rivers, as well as Chairman of the Board both of the League of Conservation Voters and of the Potomac Conservancy.

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